The Deacon's Bench
Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will be named the next archbishop of Chicago,The Associated Press has learned.
[UPDATE: The Vatican Saturday morning made it official. Read more about that here.]
Cupich will succeed Cardinal Francis George, according to a person with knowledge of the selection, who spoke Friday on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. George, 77, has been battling cancer and has said he believes the disease will end his life.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference for Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese would not comment.
Pope Francis’ choice for Chicago has been closely watched as his first major appointment in the U.S., and the clearest indication yet of the direction he will steer American church leaders. Cupich is a moderate, and is not among U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who have taken a harder line on hot-button topics. Francis has called the church’s focus on abortion, marriage and contraception narrow and said it was driving people away.
An official from the Diocese of Spokane said he could not comment.
The Archdiocese of Chicago serves 2.2 million parishioners and is the third-largest diocese in the country. Chicago archbishops are usually elevated to cardinal and are therefore eligible to vote for the next pope.
The Chicago church has long been considered a flagship of American Catholicism, sparking lay movements of national influence and producing archbishops who shape national debate. Before George, the head of the archdiocese was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a hero to Catholics who place equal importance on issues such as abortion and poverty.
Cupich, 65, is a native of Omaha, Nebraska, where he was ordained a priest. He holds degrees from the Pontifical Gregorian University and The Catholic University of America.
UPDATE: Rocco describes this as—quote “the most shocking major move the American hierarchy has seen in the last decade and a half.”
He adds:
The choice serves to reflect of one of Francis’ key emphases over his 18-month pontificate: that of a church geared toward the “periphery” as opposed to being locked in its “sacristies.” Put another way, Cupich’s experience before landing in the nation’s third-largest diocese speak to another of the Pope’s lead threads – a premium on missionary pastors for a missionary church.
Notably, Bishop Cupich made headlines three years ago for his position on the “40 Days for Life” program. Lifesite News reported:
After news broke last week that the bishop of Spokane had allegedly forbidden priests of the diocese from participating in pro-life vigils outside abortion facilities, the diocese on Friday released a new statement to clarify the bishop’s position.
While the statement appears to allow priests to participate in such events according to their discretion, multiple sources have confirmed to LifeSiteNews that the diocese has also privately reinforced its request, via e-mail communications, that priests and seminarians not do so.
The news of Bishop Blase Cupich’s position broke last week after witnesses at a September meeting reported that at the meeting the bishop had urged Spokane priests and seminarians not to pray outside abortion clinics.
The news prompted a petition asking Cupich to reconsider, spearheaded by the local 40 Days for Life co-director, who said the bishop also expressed disapproval of the 40 Days campaign during a diocesan Respect Life Committee meeting this summer. 40 Days for Life is an international pro-life campaign calling for a period of prayer and fasting to end abortion, as well as peaceful and non-confrontational public witness outside abortion clinics.
In a statement Friday, the diocese of Spokane said priests should place emphasis on education about the abortion issue above confrontational tactics.
“The present political environment has become very toxic and polarizing, to the point that people have become fixed in their positions, especially in regard to abortion, and are unwilling to talk to each other,” the diocese says in its statement. “The pastoral challenge is to get people to take a second look at the issue of abortion.”
The diocese notes that Bishop Cupich had “asked the priests to approach respect life issues as teachers, for that is what they are.”
Meantime, RNS’s David Gibson writes:
Named by Pope Benedict XVI to head the Diocese of Spokane in September 2010, Cupich (pronounced “SOUP-itch”) has steadily staked out positions that align him with Catholics who want the church to engage the world rather than rail against the forces of secularism.
In March 2012, for example, in the midst of the bishops’ nasty battle with the Obama administration over religious freedom and the employer mandate to provide free contraception coverage, Cupich wrote an essay in America magazine titled “Staying Civil.”
In that column, Cupich called for dialogue with the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services rather than constant confrontation, and said the crisis was a chance to find “common ground.”
“While the outrage to the H.H.S. decision was understandable, in the long run threats and condemnations have a limited impact,” he wrote.
The phrase “common ground” also resonated because it was associated with the approach of George’s predecessor in Chicago, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who embodied the hopes of a more progressive church — hopes that seemed to end with George.
…Cupich also gained notice in 2012 by adopting a moderate line when Washington voters went to the polls to vote in a referendum to legalize same-sex marriage.
In a pastoral letter read from all the pulpits in the diocese, Cupich defended the church’s position against same-sex marriage but he called for a respectful debate and he forcefully condemned any attempt “to incite hostility towards homosexual persons or promote an agenda that is hateful and disrespectful of their human dignity.”
“It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action,” Cupich wrote. “Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs.”
Cupich also frequently praised the new approach of Pope Francis, who was elected in March of 2013, echoing his call for a more collaborative church and a greater attention to the church’s social justice teaching.
Thomas Peters at Catholic Vote has this reaction:
Liberals are trying so hard to spin this but it reminds me of cotton candy: sweet, but all air.
I’m going to make the argument that Pope Francis’ choice of Bishop Cupich should actually pour cold water on liberal hopes of a leftward turn in the American episcopacy.
…Bishop Cupich talks in a way that makes liberals feel comfortable, but the substance of what he says is almost always sound and orthodox. He told the New York Times “Pope Francis doesn’t want cultural warriors, he doesn’t want ideologues”, but do liberals ever stop and realize that cuts both ways?
If this appointment does indeed signal Pope Francis’ plans for the US Catholic Church, I would argue we have reasons for hope.
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