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N.Y. Catholics impatient for new archishop's name

How intense is the wait for a new archbishop of New York? Gary Sterns of Blogging Religiously jokes that he could imagine a story that began:

NEW YORK—Countless priests, media people and Catholic Church watchers of all sorts slumped in front of their computers this morning, exhaling slowly and letting out a faint moan, as they realized that the announcement of a new archbishop of New York was not to be ...

Blogger Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia is plotting the traffic for a dash to St. Patrick's in time for a press conference.

I fear we media folk will start hyperventilating if the pope doesn't name the new man for the top U.S. post in the Church in pretty soon. The much-rumored front runner is Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan but won't everyone be surprised if another name rolls in from Rome, perhaps Archbishop for Military Services Timothy Broglio.

Broglio, 58, was the pope's ambassador to the Dominican Republic and papal delegate to Puerto Rico before taking the military post. He had a major role in assisting Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl in planning the pope's very successful visit to Washington DC last year.

Connected. Pastoral. Bi-lingual. Hmmm. Broglio hits quite a few of the supposed "must" buttons for the high visibility post.

Of course, if the pope doesn't name someone Tuesday, I'll be working my way down the bio list. Next up: Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Gregory, first African American bishop to serve as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Stay tuned for updates.

Photo by Mike Segar, Reuters: Pope Benedict XVI passes St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York while riding up 5th Avenue in the Popemobile. The Cathedral is the see of the archbishop of New York.

A fresh look at science-and-religion tension

"Theistic evolution." Now, here's a term that's new to me.

But in a essay for Harvard Divinity Bulletin religion writer and author Mark Pinsky captures a fresh way of talking about how some of the world's most glittering scientists, famed for their research from the genes to the stars, reconcile evangelical faith with their passion for rigorous research.

During a fellowship in science and religion last year at Cambridge, Charles Darwin's alma mater, Pinsky had searching conversations with biologists, cosmologists and physicists such as Simon Conway Morris, Sir John Polkinghorne, Sir Brian Heap and Sir John Houghton -- all evangelical believers. He writes:

By and large, they reject creationism and intelligent design, embracing the concept of "theistic evolution," a God-created, billions-years-old universe. None numbered themselves among any of the apocalyptic American evangelical tribes of arrogant dominionists or fanciful premillennial dispensationalists of the "Left Behind" stripe.

Pinsky burrows into a particular area of the science-and-religion tensions. What is the role of faith in shaping how one views stewardship of the earth? It's a "hot" question now that many scientists say global warming is rising more rapidly.

Theological opponents of "creation care," Pinsky writes,

... agree with the late ultraconservative theologian R. J. Rushdoony, that science must first serve religion: "If Jesus Christ is Lord of the family, he is also Lord of the laboratory."

By contrast, reproductive biologist and ethicist Heap, who belongs to the British group Christians in Science, told Pinsky,

The religious foundation comes from the Christian motivation to seek the best for others ... for the world we too easily damage."

Calvin DeWitt, professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, has an eloquent way of putting this:

Scientific inquiry in some settings can even be a form of worship, I believe -- a kind of singing a living psalm to the Lord of creation.

Now, I'll give it to Pinsky here. I met most of these same scientists in 2005 when I attended the same fellowship program, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, but I never burrowed so deeply or so well into how they balance science and belief.

Lucky for me, I'll be back to Cambridge in April for a seminar on evolution and the brain. (I'm fascinated with the definition of consciousness, the possibilities of a physics of thought). What do you think I should ask the scientists and theologians I'll meet?

Photo by R. Hurt, NASA: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, sampled light from an estimated 30 million stars to build a detailed portrait of the inner regions of the Milky Way.

A cheerful archbishop bound for St. Patrick's?

The Catholic blogoshere is agog for Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan. Posts from here to Rome have piled up with Dolan as front for the top U.S. post in the Catholic Church, the next Archbishop of New York.

Here's just the latest from Vatican-watcher Rocco Palmo, who sees a plum posting for ...

... the "self-made man" with the boisterous laugh and ability to keep people's attention -- not to mention raise herculean amounts of money without breaking a sweat -- (who) is and will remain a figure of outsize clout in the top rank of the US bench, all by force of the ebullient, engaging, force of personality that's made him a household name ...

Pope Benedict XVI has been known to surprise the C-bloggers. Last year the pope elevated Archbishop Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston to cardinal last year when blog consensus seemed to be that the cardinal's red hat would go to Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl.

Still, in just case Dolan turns up at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan at a press conference sometime soon, here's a fast brush up.

Dolan, who took over in Milwaukee in 2002, has held the kind of posts that can burnish a resume including five years as secretary to the pope's ambassador to the USA and seven years as rector of the elite Pontifical North American College in Rome (where bishops send their top seminarians). In 2001, after 25 years as a priest, Dolan became Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis, assisting an archbishop now highly placed in Rome.

A 2006 profile of Dolan in Milwaukee Magazine, looked at his progress with a 10-county diocese that looked like many U.S. urban archdioceses in the North. It was bleeding Catholics, bleeding money, and suffering, like the church nationwide, from pain and distrust in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

Dolan's predecessor, social justice activist Rembert Weakland, was tainted by a revelation that he sold church property inappropriately, allegedly to pay hush money to seminarian after a sexual relationship. Overall, the magazine reported, the archdiocese has paid "more than $22 million, selling off property and slashing administrative staff to settle with more than 110 victims."

The year after he arrived,163 Milwaukee-area priests signed a letter endorsing optional celibacy as a way to address the priest shortage. Dolan answered obliquely. His solution is not to change ordination rules but to drive up demand. He told me then:

Strong Catholic families will inspire their sons to join the church. If we double our attendance at Mass, we will double our vocations.

By the time of the magazine profile, Dolan's "joyful" personality and his focus on collaborative planning won praise in coverage (along with some digs that he wasn't an intellectual heavyweight). Auxiliary bishop Richard Sklba described Dolan's qualities of "constant, chaotic, haphazard cheerfulness."

Last month, Dolan, in an open pastoral letter on Living Our Faith in the 21st Century, assessed the progress and challenges facing the archdiocese and presented its vision for the future despite too few priests, sinking demand for sacraments and the popular view that the church should shift with consumer culture instead of shape. He writes,

What we have learned in the "school of hard knocks" is that cooperation, mergers, consolidations, or closings are not successful when imposed from above. Dioceses where the bishop's office simply announces widespread reorganization without exhaustive dialog, face bitterness, resentment, and loss of people.

Dolan calls resolutely for meeting change with faithful confidence. If he winds up in the U.S. capitol of hard knocks, he may need need both.

Photo by Gregory Shaver, Racine Journal Times,AP: Shortly after his installation in Milwaukee in 2002, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, left, and Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba, acknowledges a crowd at one of the celebrations welcoming him to the archdiocese.

Next N.Y. Archbishop? Speculation boils

Years ago, political experts would discern power shifts in China by reading clues in wall posters.

Something like that is going on in Catholic circles of Manhattan now. There's a frenzy of speculation on who will become the next Archbishop of New York -- the post Vaticanista-in-Philadelphia Rocco Palmo calls "the Big One" at his blog-for-Catholic-Church-obsessives, Whispers in the Loggia.

Five weeks ago, when the pope named a new archbishop of Detroit, USA TODAY ran down a list of top names on the rumor list for the spot. The New York Times played out the speculation last week (same names in play). This week, the current Archbishop, Cardinal Edward Egan, told Catholic New York that word could come "any day now," that he should pack his beloved piano and head for his retirement home.

Now, Palmo writes:

Credible reports indicate that Benedict XVI's intended nominee has received notice of his selection for the New York post, and has accepted the appointment.

Similarly, a separate, widely-circulated nugget -- traceable to a very high authority -- relates that said choice is: 1. proficient in Spanish (a seeming pre-requisite for what's now a majority-Latino local church), 2. enjoys a reputation as a "conciliator," and 3. is proven to be "good with priests" (the latter two a reflection of Concern #1 for the Big Apple nod).

Each of the names that National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen, another Vatican-watching veteran, mentioned to me hits at least one of Palmo's qualifications. They include two who are close to Manhattan, Archbishop John Myers of Newark and Bishop of Bridgeport William Lori, as well as three who are from further afield:

•Archbishop of Military Services Timothy Broglio, who has a track record in the Vatican secretary of State's office including serving as a papal nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to the Dominican Republic. Dominicans are a leading minority group in New York.

•Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan, a former rector of the North American College in Rome, the Catholic Church's elite seminary for U.S. priests. "He's not a visionary but he lights up a room, he's adept at communications and he's good with priests and seminarians," says Allen.

•Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Gregory, former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "who earned enormous respect for his leadership" during the most explosive years of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, says Allen. If named, Gregory would be the first black archbishop of New York.

But the trouble with rumors is that Pope Benedict XVI can surprise people. Do you think he's got the same list of concerns and qualifications for the next major voice for the U.S. Church? What if he thinks the essential quality is a pastoral personality, such as Egan's predecessor, Cardinal John O'Connor? Or does Benedict want to build on the administrative and financial order Egan stressed?

Shall we join the vaticanistas in reading tea leaves? Whom would you pick?

Photo by Mark Vergari, The Journal News; Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop of New York, kisses the ring of Pope Benedict XVI after his introduction, during the Mass at Yankee Stadium last April.

You say ... Darwin, intelligent design don't mix

Earlier this week, the Vatican announced that "intelligent design" -- the idea that a higher power or God steers any changes in all creation -- has been added, as a cultural concept, to the agenda of the Holy See's event honoring Charles Darwin's groundbreaking book on evolution, On the Origin of Species.

Most -- but not all of you -- think it's the wrong call to mix Darwin and ID. Here are some highlights from hundreds of comments on my post about this. And, of course, you can still chime in:

philips writes:

At this point, neither macroevolution nor intelligent design can be considered falsifiable, and a reasoned, open debate should continue. In a free society everything is open to question, which is why Intelligent Design should be included in the Vatican conference. Intelligent Design advocates simply want to argue that there are other possible explanations for the development of species macroevolution.

hamer12string argues ...

"Creation science" cannot be considered science because it cannot be challenged. The fundamental precept of creationism is that the Bible is the factual account of the origins of the universe, the earth, and all life on it. No additional data can ever be considered that would contradict the Bible as a literal account.

"Intelligent design" is a legal argument -- not a scientific one. It is a rebranding and restatement of creationism with an attempt at satisfying constitutional separation of church and state. It has been unmasked as repackaged creationism.

But Jerome Thomas suggests we shouldn't discount so quickly the worth in myth and allegory: ...

... The utility and beauty of myth has nothing to do with literal truthfulness. Nothing whatsoever. Biblical scholars and learned people unanimously agree on this point. There is simply no real conflict in the scientific community over the worth of myth. Myth and science, in the minds of learned people, are not at all at odds. Hopefully, one day self-appointed religious reformers will gain some insight and cease their shrill and shallow protests and pleadings, and we will be freed of this endless, silly discussion.

Photo by Plinio Lepri, AP; The "La Creazione" (The Creation) fresco by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.

A jolt of pain -- and a glimpse of fearless faith

I should read Amy Welborn's blog, Charlotte Was Both, every day but I missed it recently. So only today I learned that her husband, Michael Dubruiel, died suddenly last week. One minute he was working out at the gym, then the next, gone without a cry.

For those who don't recognize her name, Welborn was once known colloquially as "the Catholic blogger," for her essay-like posts, drawn from a deeply faithful heart and intellectually searching mind. A few years ago she moved to a new blog, named for the last lines of Charlotte's Web, ("It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.") to write on broader themes. Now, this.

A true writer and a true believer, she writes about losing her beloved. Anyone who wants to feel your heart burst should go directly here. I did after Steven Waldman's Beliefnet column clued me in. Like Steven, I cannot do better than to quote the conclusion of Welborn's post. She writes about listening to the Gospel of Mark as she travels to her husband's funeral:

There are stages, there are layers, there are bridges. There is a void, my best friend in the world is just -- gone. But in this moment I am confronted with the question, most brutally asked, of whether I really do believe all that I say I believe. Into this time of strange, awful loss, Jesus stepped in. He wasted no time. He came immediately. His presence was real and vivid and in him the present and future, bound in love, moved close. The gratitude I felt for life now and forever and what had prepared us for this surged, I was tempted to push it away for the sake of propriety, for what is expected, for what was supposed to be normal -- I was tempted to say, "Leave me" instead of accepting the Hand extended to me and to immediately allow him to define my life.

But I did not give into that temptation, and a few hours later I was able to do what I dreaded, what I thought was undoable, to be in a mystery that was both presence and absence and to not be afraid. To not be afraid for him, and for the first time ever in my entire life -- to not be afraid for myself, either.

At last.

Top photo by CK Photography: Amy Welborn. Bottom photo by Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, Thessaloniki, Greece: A page from an ancient Greek Bible manuscript shows the Gospel of Mark, where Amy Welborn says she finds comfort.

Church and state face anti-Semitism differently

We could post a running update on anti-Semitism these days.

There's the ongoing affront by the right-wing bishops from the reactionary Society of St. Pius X, who reject the reforms of the modern Roman Catholic Church. The foursome include Holocaust-denier Bishop Richard Williamson and Bishop Bernard Fellay, who told the French press he won't agree to the ecumenical direction the Church took after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

Fellay told French media that Vatican II's statement acknowledging Jews as Christians' "elder brothers" was "not enough for them to be saved," because Jews did not accept Jesus as their savior.

Bishop Williamson, who denied the Holocaust occurred, got rapped by the pope and apologized for the huff -- without recanting. He is merely looking into the facts for himself... and taking his sweet time about it.

No word yet on the papal reaction to Fellay's remarks -- released the same day Benedict met at the Vatican with Jewish leaders (official text here) It was the fourth time in two weeks, for Benedict to talk about how repugnant it is for anyone to deny Hitler's genocidal attack on European Jewry.

Meanwhile, consider the news from Austria where. Reuters reports, a public school teacher in Vienna, a Muslim who handed his students anti-Semitic pamphlets and encouraged them to boycott businesses owned by people with Jewish names, has been suspended by the nation's education minister. The minister has asked that the teacher's license be revoked by the Official Islamic Community in Austria.

Should Benedict re-impose the decades-old excommunication of Williamson and Fellay that he lifted last month? Will this still be an issue in May when Benedict visits Israel?

A photo of the late Pope John Paul II praying at the Western Wall, the remnant of the Jews ancient temple in Jerusalem, became an enduring image of his papacy. Perhaps this pope's most moving moment will be a visit to the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. Maybe he should bring Williamson and Fellay along.

Photo by Uriel Sinai, Getty Images; The Hall of Namesat the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, shown here in March 2005, tells the story of the Holocaust through photos and documents from its Jewish victims.

Photo by Jerome Delay, AP; Pope John Paul II rests his hand on the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem during his visit in March 2000.

Random inspiration from a list fanatic

Random is a great word. No context. Out of the blue. Odd.

So when award-winning religion reporter Jeffrey Weiss, a mainstay on the Dallas Morning News Religion Blog (you've seen him quoted here on F&R) told me he was hooked on random lists, I had to see his new brainchild, a personal blog called BestRandomThings.

Just as Facebook friends share '25 Things' with the world, Weiss picks up on our insatiable need to know wacky stuff about each other (including our faith lives) in an era when communities are fragmented into "tiny and unsatisfying subgroups." Weiss says we love random lists because ...

People are hardwired with a need to know about others – and tell others about themselves.

Now he's combing the Internet for the eye-catching thoughts such at this one on faith:

When I was 12, I wrote my own religion. I really liked the idea of the ritual and the meaning, but didn’t believe in either the Jewish or Christian version of God. This happened soon after reading Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.

He'll link you up to a 25-things parody that imagines a list from Godzilla, including the mythic monster's #22 that hits the "ethics" part of my Faith & Reason portfolio:

Before any of you judge me for crushing innocent Tokyo residents, let me ask you something: Have you ever stepped on an insect just because it was in the wrong place (e.g. bathtub) at the wrong time?

Thanks a lot. Now, I feel guilty about those stink bugs ...

I'll be dropping by in search of inspirational nuggets.

But I still don't feel inclined to dish randomly about myself. Do you? Have you shared anything faith-related in Facebook notes, MySpace profiles, etc.?

Photos: Top, self-portrait by Jeffrey Weiss; bottom by Classic Media: Godzilla from the original 1956 Japanese film, Gojira: King of the Monsters 1956.

Intelligent Design: 'Culture' or science?

Intelligent design -- long promoted by people who want to see it replace evolution in science textbooks and classrooms -- has been added to the agenda for a Vatican conference in March marking the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

But ID, which posits that a higher power must have guided the evolution of species across time, will not be presented as "science." Instead, a zoologist at the University of Rome who is a conference organizer, told The Associated Press,

The committee agreed to consider ID as a phenomenon of an ideological and cultural nature, thus worthy of a historic examination, but certainly not to be discussed on scientific, philosophical or theological grounds.

So here will be the Vatican, where the official position is that science and faith are compatible, sharing the international spotlight with with those discount Darwin's game-changing work on natural selection, unguided by God or a higher power. (Remember, we're not even touching on what kicked off "life" to begin with, just on what happened next).

Do you think ID belongs on the Darwin conference stage -- culturally or scientifically?

Photo by Dan Kitwood,Getty Images; The first published copy of Charles Darwin's "On The Origin Of The Species'" is displayed at the home where he wrote it in Orpington, England.

Stimulus bill shuts out divinity schools for funds

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was in a huff Tuesday, calling the stimulus bill "anti-religious," according to Politico's Andy Barr. The former presidential candidate, and Southern Baptist preacher, was unhappy, Barr said, "because both the House and Senate versions would ban higher education funds in the bill from being used on a school or department of divinity."

Is this a righteous reason to stall the massive bill? Is it proof of bias by the Democrats who support the bill? Or is it an unholy flap to make points with believers who want federally-funded religious training?

Still more questions come to mind: Is a future pastor more or less worthy of financial support in school than a future nurse, farmer or investment banker?Should society as a whole -- including childless taxpayers -- get to cherry pick who is eligible for federal education funds? Could I opt out of paying in some of my taxes now that my kiddo has graduated?

Photo by Alex Brandon, AP; Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, spoke from the pulpit at the Apostolic Church of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Mich, last year during his presidential campaign.

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