{"id":48,"date":"2010-08-03T08:48:07","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T08:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html"},"modified":"2010-08-03T08:48:07","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T08:48:07","slug":"the-new-bishop-of-trenton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html","title":{"rendered":"The New Bishop of Trenton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"O'Connell.jpg\"David
\nO’Connell, the former president of the Catholic University who was
\nanointed coadjutor bishop of Trenton last weekend, may be a great
\nguy–but given all that’s been happening in the church over the past few
\nmonths, his allocution<\/a> left me cold.<\/p>\n

His official episcopal slogan, Ministrare non ministrari<\/i>–to serve rather than to be served–sounds humble enough, but it’s simply an evocation of that old papal appellation, servus servorum dei<\/a>—<\/i>servant
\nof the servants of God. Depending on who’s wearing the mitre, it can
\nsignify faux as well as bona fide humility. Which posture will O’Connell
\nassume?<\/p>\n

He focused his remarks on laying out three ways a bishop serves: 1)
\nteaching truth; 2) sanctifying his people; and 3) shepherding his
\npeople. “To teach. To sanctify. To shepherd. This is what a bishop
\ndoes for God’s people and with God’s people.” The most regal hierarch in
\nhistory would have had no trouble uttering that line.<\/p>\n

What about serving God’s people by ensuring that they are protected
\nagainst sexual predators in clerical clothing? What about serving God’s
\npeople with an administration that is open and transparent? What about
\nserving God’s people by pledging to fulfill their spiritual aspirations?
\nWhat about serving God’s people, in a desperately poor city, with a
\nrenewed commitment to supporting their material needs? That’s ministrare <\/i>in my book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David O’Connell, the former president of the Catholic University who was anointed coadjutor bishop of Trenton last weekend, may be a great guy–but given all that’s been happening in the church over the past few months, his allocution left me cold. His official episcopal slogan, Ministrare non ministrari–to serve rather than to be served–sounds humble…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe New Bishop of Trenton - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The New Bishop of Trenton - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David O’Connell, the former president of the Catholic University who was anointed coadjutor bishop of Trenton last weekend, may be a great guy–but given all that’s been happening in the church over the past few months, his allocution left me cold. His official episcopal slogan, Ministrare non ministrari–to serve rather than to be served–sounds humble…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-03T08:48:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.spiritual-politics.org\/O%27Connell.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The New Bishop of Trenton - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The New Bishop of Trenton - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","og_description":"David O’Connell, the former president of the Catholic University who was anointed coadjutor bishop of Trenton last weekend, may be a great guy–but given all that’s been happening in the church over the past few months, his allocution left me cold. His official episcopal slogan, Ministrare non ministrari–to serve rather than to be served–sounds humble…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html","og_site_name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","article_published_time":"2010-08-03T08:48:07+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.spiritual-politics.org\/O%27Connell.jpg"}],"author":"Mark Silk","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html","name":"The New Bishop of Trenton - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.spiritual-politics.org\/O%27Connell.jpg","datePublished":"2010-08-03T08:48:07+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-03T08:48:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.spiritual-politics.org\/O%27Connell.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.spiritual-politics.org\/O%27Connell.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/08\/the-new-bishop-of-trenton.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The New Bishop of Trenton"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/","name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","description":"Beliefnet Voices","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d","name":"Mark Silk","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","caption":"Mark Silk"},"description":"Mark Silk graduated from Harvard College in 1972 and earned his Ph.D. in medieval history from Harvard University in 1982. After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}