ARTICLES
APRIL 2005 ARTICLES
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
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Not a Mahony Man
New Phoenix Bishop a Man of the Pope
BY DON GUERANGER
Cardinal Roger Mahony's influence with Rome may be waning — if episcopal appointments in recent years are any indication. For a time, it seemed that Cardinal Mahony had a powerful say as to who would be a bishop in California and the Western states. Several bishops appointed during the cardinal's tenure were either former high-ranking clerics of the archdiocese of Los Angeles or close associates of Mahony. These include Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann (formerly auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, appointed 1992 to Santa Rosa), Bishop Tod Brown of Orange (appointed 1998), Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco (appointed 1999), and Bishop Stephen Blare (formerly a Los Angeles auxiliary and vicar general for Los Angeles, appointed bishop of Stockton in January 1999.)
Matters changed, however, after Bishop Ziemann resigned as bishop of Santa Rosa in July 1999 after it was revealed that he had had a long-standing sexual relationship with a priest and had misspent diocesan funds. Since then, Rome has gone farther afield than California and the West for episcopal appointments. In 2003, the Holy See went as far east as Michigan to fill a vacancy in the diocese of Oakland, selecting Bishop Alan Vigneron, known for his orthodox proclivities. More recently, Rome chose Oscar Solis, a priest of the diocese of Thibodoux, Louisiana, to serve as an auxiliary bishop for Los Angeles. (Interestingly, though the San Pedro pastoral region was vacant after the retirement of Bishop Joseph Sartoris, Bishop Solis did not receive it but was made bishop at large. Instead a local priest, Alexander Salazar, was made auxiliary bishop for San Pedro.)
But old habits die hard. When in 2003 Bishop Thomas O'Brien resigned from the diocese of Phoenix, Arizona, church watchers predicted Los Angeles auxiliary bishop Gabino Zavala would be his successor. But instead of Zavala , Rome chose Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Witchita, Kansas, to succeed O'Brien. Bishop Olmsted was installed in December 2003.
If Bishop Olmsted is not a Mahony man, he has proven to be a man of the pope. "He is 100 percent faithful to the magisterium of the Church, in all ways," a priest of the diocese of Phoenix told me in early May of 2004. "Basically, his statements have been, 'if this is what the pope says, this is what we will do.'"
The priest, who asked that I not use his name, told me he was favorably impressed with Olmsted. "He is a man intensely in love with Christ," Father X told me. "When you meet him and talk with him, you are truly meeting a man who loves Christ and loves his faith. Being around him makes me want to be a better priest." As well as orthodox, Bishop Olmsted, said Father X, is profoundly pastoral. "When you talk to him, he is speaking to you and only you in that moment. Everyone who has met him (they have these long lines where he is shaking everybody's hand) has said the same thing — that for that 30 seconds you were shaking hands with him, you were the only person in his universe."
Bishop Olmsted was ordained a priest of the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1973. He studied canon law at the Gregorian University in Rome, has served in the Vatican's secretariat of state, as president and rector of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, as well as promoter of justice for the tribunal for the diocese of Lincoln. Olmsted, it seems, has brought something of the spirit of the Lincoln diocese to Arizona. His first Christmas Eve and Good Friday in Phoenix found him praying the rosary in front of a Phoenix abortion clinic. Father X said that in the few short months of his reign, the bishop has been going through the diocese "making very, very sure that what happens in parishes is along the lines of what the Church teaches."
And Bishop Olmsted has had run-ins with some of his priests. On April 29, he suspended a popular priest, the Rev. John Cunningham, pastor of St. Mary Magdalene parish in Gilbert, after he allegedly concelebrated a wedding Mass with a Lutheran minister. When nine priests signed their names to the "Phoenix Declaration," an interfaith clergy letter which urges full acceptance of homosexuals in church and civic life, Bishop Olmsted sent them a private and confidential letter asking them, under obedience, to remove their names. The priests leaked the bishop's letter to the press. The bishop 's response was to write three articles for the Catholic Sun, the archdiocesan newspaper, titled "The blessings of a chaste life, The call to holiness of homosexual persons." The first of these, published May 6, 2004, made the necessary distinctions regarding homosexual inclination and homosexual acts. Olmsted said, "those who engage in homosexual acts commit serious sin, as both the Old Testament and New Testament teach (Cf. Genesis 19:1-29, Romans 1:18-32, I Timothy 1:10) and as Christian Tradition has consistently affirmed (Cf. Catechism, #2357)." In the second article, while encouraging priests to accept homosexuals as persons "made in the image of God," Bishop Olmsted told priests not to "condone homosexual activity or fail to teach clearly that it, along with all sexual activity outside of marriage, is seriously wrong." Subsequently, on June 3, the bishop taught that "marriage can exist only between a man and a woman because only the union of male and female can express the sexual complementarity created and willed by God for marriage." He said, further, that "it is not unjust to deny legal status to 'same-sex unions.'" In all three articles, however, Olmsted refrained from saying, as does the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that the homosexual inclination itself, though not sinful, is objectively disordered.
In liturgical matters, Bishop Olmsted seems to be moving toward enforcing proper celebration in accord with the norms of the Church. He also approved the indult Mass for his diocese; on April 30, 2004, Olmsted announced that the Tridentine Mass would once again be regularly celebrated n the diocese. "Several priests objected to this," said Father X. "They asked him to delay. He said, 'well, I take my cue from the pope, who is often told to delay. But, if it's the right thing to do, then you don't need to wait.'"
And, thus far, Bishop Olmsted has not neglected social justice issues. According to the May 5 East Valley Tribune, Olmsted has spoken out against capital punishment and contraception. The April 24 Arizona Daily Star reported that with the bishops of Tucson and Hermosillo, Mexico, Olmsted drew attention to the dangers immigrants face crossing the border. The bishops called for hospitality for immigrants as well as the promotion of social justice in both Mexico and the United States. "Whatever happens to the least of us is what happens to Christ," Bishop Olmsted said. He also joined with the other bishops of Arizona in opposing a ballot measure for the November 2 election — Proposition 200, which proposed removing public services from undocumented immigrants. "The Catholic Church recognizes," the statement said, "that a sovereign state has the right to control its borders in furtherance of the common good. Nonetheless, all human beings are entitled to basic inalienable rights. In the Holy Father's Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation titled, 'The Church in America,' it is specifically noted that 'attention must be called to the rights of migrants and their families and to respect for their human dignity, even in cases of non-legal immigration.'"
The bishop has not been laggard on the pro-life front. Three times since his assuming the helm of the Phoenix diocese, Olmsted has personally led rosary processions in front of abortion clinics. In the June 17 Catholic Sun, Bishop Olmsted clarified the Church's teaching on caring for persons in a persistent vegetative state. After quoting Pope John Paul II, Bishop Olmsted wrote, "water and food are to be considered ordinary care even if they are administered artificially. It is, therefore, obligatory to provide food and water as long as the person's body is still nourished by them and they alleviate suffering. Once water and food can no longer be accepted by the body as nourishment, it is no longer obligatory to provide it ... we can do nothing to directly cause the death of a human person either through action or omission."
What is Olmsted's stance on giving communion to Catholic politicians? The May 21 San Francisco Chronicle reported that Olmsted would not refuse communion to such politicians, but try to persuade them. "My job is to get to know the key people in the state and appeal to their consciences," Olmsted was reported as saying. But in the May 20 Catholic Sun, Bishop Olmsted said that a similar story published in the Arizona Republic misrepresented his position. Catholics, "especially those in public life," should "examine their consciences" and "refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they are unambiguously pro-abortion," the bishop said. But then he added, "should some Catholic politicians who are presently pro-abortion obstinately persist in this contradiction to our faith, this becomes a source of scandal and measures beyond those of moral persuasion would be needed. As God tells us in the Book of Leviticus (19:16), 'You shall not stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake.'"
Further, no one unless he is pro-life will be honored in Phoenix. In a pastoral letter issued December 2004, "Catholics in Public Life," Olmtead, wrote that "politicians or public officials who consistently support abortion on demand, or any other act that is always intrinsically evil, are never to be invited to speak at our institutions or to receive awards, even if the nature of the honor is unrelated to their opposition to pro-life issues,"
The spiritual aspect of Catholic education, it seems, has also become a priority for Olmsted. In a talk, "Christ, yesterday, today and forever," given to the Conference with Catholic School Board members of the diocese on September 18, Olmsted said, "we are grateful when a student graduates from one of our Catholic schools and gets a 4-year scholarship to a famous university, but if that student does not treasure his or her relationship with Christ, we are failures. Whether our kids and we believe in Christ is a matter of life and death." In his talk, Olmsted stressed that "a personal commitment to the faith and to the School's Catholic identity and mission should be determining factors in faculty recruitment." Theological and spiritual training should be given to lay teachers and administrators, for "the identity and mission of Catholic schools is tied necessarily to the teachings of Jesus Christ as found in the Sacred Scriptures and in the Official Teachings of the Catholic Church. Perhaps it is no accident that the serious decline in the numbers of Catholic schools in the United States coincides with the confusion about Catholic teaching and widespread dissent to Humanae Vitae [Paul VI's encyclical condemning artificial contraception] that followed the Second Vatican Council." In this connection, as well, Olmsted acknowledged that the "serious challenge that we face is the provision of Religion and theology texts that are in full conformity with the new Catechism of the Catholic Faith."
Bishop Olmsted, said Father X, has been a "real head-turner" for what has been a troubled diocese. "For years, we had absolutely no direction. When we were waiting for a new bishop, my prayer was, 'I don't care if he is the most outlandish Gabino Zavala type, or the Bruskewitz type — I just want clear direction.' And we were never given that clear direction. That's what the problem really was — there was never a decision made that we could stick to because all it would take is one person complaining and the decision would change."
But all that has changed with Bishop Olmsted, according to Father X. "You have no idea how thankful I am to God," he said.
Father X told me this in May. I called him again in November to see if his opinion of Bishop Olmsted had changed. It hadn't. Despite what some might deem the bishop's controversial stances and disciplinary actions, said Father X, "he's raised the morale level in the priesthood. This, Father X explained, was on account of the bishop's character. The bishop lives very simply, in a simple room in a rectory, said Father. He also deals charitably with all. "I've been struck by his absolute charity, even towards those who might completely disagree with him or to those whom he might, as a bishop, have to call back to Catholic teaching," said Father X. "You might be able to disagree with him on paper, but when you meet with him, he's so willing to dialogue and to listen to what you might have to say, it's hard to argue. To be shown that respect the human person is due, to see that lived in such a clear way, amazes me."