The Most Rev. Timothy Michael Dolan, the newly installed Archbishop of New York, has a reputation as a genial beer-swilling giant that will doubtless serve him well as he takes possession of his new see. With a Ph.D. in Church History, Archbishop Dolan formerly served as Secretary to the Nuncio in Washington, D.C. before becoming Rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome — the “West Point” of the Catholic Church in Anglo-America. Having improved the NAC’s reputation both in studies and in orthodoxy, Msgr. Dolan was then sent by the Holy Father to be an Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. From there, our man was given the charge of see himself, that of Milwaukee.
In Milwaukee, Archbishop Dolan managed to stave off a potential bankruptcy and fix a deficit of over $3 million. He made the archdiocesan finances more transparent by bringing in an outside auditing firm to look at the books and sending the independent firm’s results to every registered parishioner.
His Grace, His Honor & His Excellency: At his installation, Archbishop Dolan greeted Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of the City of New York, and David Paterson, the Governor of New York.
“The Church in New York, and indeed all of America, rejoices this morning at the announcement that Pope Benedict XVI has named Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan to be the next Archbishop of New York,” wrote Michael Sean Winters of the Jesuit order’s America magazine.
“We first met in Rome when, coincidentally enough, I was working on an article about Cardinal John O’Connor. Dolan was hosting a reception in his apartment at the North American College for Thanksgiving Day. Every American Catholic in the Eternal City seemed to be crammed into the rector’s living room. Cocktails flowed, cigars were lit, and the sense of loneliness one has when celebrating a national holiday abroad was dispersed thoroughly by Dolan’s hospitality.”
“I look forward to knowing and loving you,” he said on his first visit to New York after it was announced he was to become its ecclesiastical leader. “I come before you in awe, with some trepidation, knowing I have a lot to learn, — about you and about this dynamic local church.”
“Yet I come so confident in God’s grace and mercy, and so hopeful in the dream that is ours for a ‘future full of hope’ as promised by God. I relish the blessing of spending the rest of my life as your pastor, neighbor, and friend.”
Dolan and Burke never crossed paths in St. Louis, when Dolan became our Archbishop here in Milw. Burke was the Bishop of the Diocese of Lacrosse in western Wisconsin.
New York is very lucky!