I MET Sean O’Malley in the 1970s, when he was just a humble Capuchin friar ministering to the poorest and most marginalized Hispanics in the nation’s capital. He had been sent by his order to head the Spanish Catholic Center, and he took the assignment seriously enough that he found an apartment in the same dilapidated, tenement-style building where the offices of the center were located.
O’Malley rejuvenated the Spanish Catholic Center. He quickly attracted the best and the brightest of the Hispanic professionals in Washington; soon the center offered not only English-as-a-second-language classes, but also a free dental and medical clinic.
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I'll be very surprised if Cardinal Sean is elected. It would be too good to be true. Perhaps Cardinal Sean's true goodness will in time open the eyes and hearts of these negative posters. We'll keep praying.
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Nobody should be Pope.
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127, Aren't you my friend?
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It's our turn??
And "our turn" is Law's clean-up guy?? The new Cardinal out in LA sounds more in tune with what this country at its best stands for.
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If you want to know why Cardinal O'Malley should not be Pope, here is a place to start.
http://bostoncatholicinsider.wordpress.com/
The Cardinal is a good and decent man but a terribly leader and administrator. He is an absentee leader of the Boston Archdiocese. He has appointed a number of ambitious and high-priced senior staff who make most of the policy decisions, many of which are not in support of the roles of a bishop - to teach, preach, and lead people to God. He has not been a good steward of the resources of the Archdiocese. He has the appearance of a humble bishop in his Franciscan's robes, and he does lead a very modest lifestyle himself, but the Archdiocese pays salaries in excess of $100K/year to over 15 people, most of whom are not promoting the mission of the church. The superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese makes over $350K/year in total compensation. That is more than the superintendents of the Boston and New York Public School systems!
A very nice article, and my wishes go to Cardinal O'Malley.
The Holy Spirit will prevail, always.
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The idea that he is a tremendous "reformer" regarding clergy abuse is a myth. Simply not true.
Well he doesn't want the job, that's a point in his favor. And he's done a reasonable job of cleaning up the mess that Bernie the Pymp left for him. I mean, attendance and donations are down for sure, but it would have been much worse if the usual boneheads had remained in charge. Not a bad guy at all really. I doubt that the idea of an American pope would play well in Europe, Africa or Latin America so I don't think it will happen. I do think that the Church is a corrupt institution that deserves to be taken out and shot and the carcass left to rot on the garbage heap of history, and I'm immensely glad that my wife won the coin toss when we got married thirty years ago and I'm nominally Episcopalian now, although the Episcopal church is almost as much a sick joke as the Catholic Church is. But, as Popes go, the Church could do a lot worse than O'Malley. And I expect that it will, too.
All are welcome to worship and to receive communion at most Episcopal churches. Nothing "sick" there and that's not a "joke". The Episcopal churches within the Massachusetts Diocese have been growing in the past few years. Maybe if you changed from "nominally Episcopalian"status to occassionally attending to see what's really going on inside, you might not make such harsh and unfounded statements.