John Allen is reporting from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in Baltimore:
Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, was elected this morning vice-president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, putting him in line to become the body’s president in three years’ time.
The race shaped up as a two-way contest between Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee and Kicanas. … On the third and final ballot, Kicanas defeated Dolan 55 to 45 percent, winning 128 votes to Dolan’s 106.
While both Kicanas and Dolan are seen as popular, pastoral figures, in broad strokes Kicanas is seen as a theological centrist, and a major supporter of the bishops’ conference in the tradition of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. (Kicanas is himself a Chicago native.)
Dolan, the former rector of the North American College in Rome, is typically seen as a “John Paul II” bishop, concerned more with evangelism and defense of Catholic identity than with ecclesiastical bureaucracy.
Bishop Kicanas holds a PhD and MED in educational psychology from the Jesuit Loyola University Chicago, where he also served as a lecturer. His episcopal slogan is “Justice Begets Peace.” In his “Monday Memo,” he reflects on the completion of his term as a member of the USCCB Committee on Migration and his deep disappointment at the failure of comprehensive immigration reform. He has also disappointed conservatives in his diocese (though he has on another other count been solid). He is also among those who opposes Archbishop Burke’s position on communion.
See also the blog conversation at InsideCatholic.com. They blogger also say the VP election was a major battle inside the Conference, and gives an indication into where the bishops are at.
WEDNESDAY UPDATE: John Allen reports on further developments and disappointment for Dolan:
In what shapes up as nearly a clean sweep for bishops with a Chicago connection, Bishop George Murry of Youngstown, Ohio, was elected this morning to the office of secretary, one of five executive positions within the conference. Though born in Camden, New Jersey, the Jesuit Murry served as an auxiliary bishop of Chicago from 1994 to 1998 under then-Cardinal Joseph Bernardin….
Murry defeated Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee by a narrow vote of 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent. That result could be interpreted as another indication, along with the election of Kicanas yesterday, that a centrist current among the bishops associated with the Bernardin legacy still commands a majority, albeit in this case a narrow one, within the conference.
Bishop Murry is a Jesuit priest and former chairman of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which is widely considered as a bastion of liberalism within the USCCB.
We here at GOP3.com were rooting for Archbishop Dolan. We are saddened that the theological liberals still hold great sway in the bishops’ conference, but we are confident that this is only a minor and temporary setback for our Archbishop.
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Sounds like a nice little disaster on the way for us.
Daniel, you’re not even Catholic. How does this even affect you?
Anonymous:
You are correct, I am not Catholic. As my Catholic friends will tell you, I’m quite proud of my Protestantism, even as I pay a lot of attention to ecclesiastical politics.
As a Milwaukeean I am generally inclined to root for the local guy.
As a conservative, politically and theologically, I want conservatives to win positions of influence. The USCCB president plays an important role in setting the Catholic public policy agenda, and I’d like to see Archbishop Dolan hold that post. Instead, we saw a bishop win who is at best a centrist who is strongly supportive of amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Catholics cannot support anyone who is divorced.
Period, there is no wiggle room on this, in Catholicism.
Rooting is fine for a politcal candidate….but what were the Las Vegas odds when the College of Cardinals was burning straw and paper?
Did you have an office poll on Cardinal Sarducci?
Catholic bureacracy is not determined by a GOP popularity contest approach.
It’s the ability to understand, and impliment church ideology.
What is going on in America is of little concern for the church in Rome.
The majority of Catholics are not in America.
It’s fools, like James Dobson are.
Whoever gets the nod as USCCB President is going to have to deal with that loudmouth, and his non-Catholic political supporters.
It’s a Catholic thing….and nobody elses business.
Just like it’s the Catholics cause to show Mormonism as a cult; and Protestants as heretics.
Unfortunately, there are some ill-informed that think religion is a political action committee…and they want theocracy.
So why does the USCCB even have a democratic vote on the office?
“Goofticket” is an appros name.
As to the substance of your post, Daniel (thanks for the updates…) Who Cares?
USCC has zero influence on any thinking Catholic, and frankly, their generally “inside-the-beltway-elite” pronunciamentos have been studiously ignored (although sometimes fought) by actual Catholics.
Finally, this will be the last gasp of the Bernardin Mafia, as Bernardin’s worshippers are dying, as expected. The JPII/B-16 cohort is now (as you noted) 45++% and growing.