Posted on 05/13/2005 4:55:00 AM PDT by Tantumergo
Il Santo Padre ha nominato Prefetto della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede S.E. Mons. William Joseph Levada, finora Arcivescovo di San Francisco (U.S.A.).
S.E. Mons. William Joseph Levada
Archbishop William Joseph Levada is a fourth-generation Californian, born in Long Beach on June 15, 1936. Except for a three-year interval when his family lived in Texas, he attended elementary and high schools in Long Beach, followed by four years of seminary college in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
In 1958, he was sent to pursue his seminary formation in Rome at the North American College, and took his graduate theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University, receiving a doctorate in sacred theology magna cum laude.
Following ordination to the priesthood in St. Peter's Basilica on December 20, 1961, he spent five years in parish work in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, including part-time high school teaching and college campus ministry.
After receiving his doctorate, he taught theology at St. John's Seminary School of Theology, located at Camarillo in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. During these six years he also served as the first Director of Continuing Education for the Clergy in the Archdiocese.
In 1976, he was appointed an Official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. During his six years of service, he continued teaching theology part-time as an Instructor at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
In 1982, he was assigned to be Executive Director of the California Catholic Conference of Bishops in Sacramento, the public policy arm of the Church in California. During his two years there, he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, and was ordained with the title Titular Bishop of Capri on May 12, 1983.
Returning to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1984, he served as Episcopal Vicar for Santa Barbara County until his 1986 appointment as Chancellor and Moderator of the Curia.
On July 1, 1986, he was appointed eighth Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, and was installed on September 21. During his nine years in Portland, Archbishop Levada was able to devote time to the recruitment of priestly vocations and enhancement of the seminary at Mt. Angel, where he taught Ecclesiology.
Appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of San Francisco on August 17, 1995, Archbishop Levada was installed on October 24 that year, and succeeded Archbishop John Quinn, as seventh Archbishop of San Francisco on December 27, 1995.
Since his ordination as a Bishop, he has been active on many committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as on the governing boards of the Catholic University of America, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
From 1986 to 1993 he served as the only American bishop on the Editorial Committee of the Vatican Commission for a Catechism of the Catholic Church; he authored the Catechism's Glossary, which was published in the English-language second edition of the Catechism.
In 1997, he participated in the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for America, and was subsequently named to its post-Synodal Council. From July, 1999, to May, 2000, he was assigned additional duties as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Santa Rosa. During 2000, he was designated Bishop Co-Chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue in the United States (ARC-USA). In November the Vatican announced his appointment as a Member of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
In 2003, he organized the sesquicentennial celebration of the 150 years of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which culminated in a July 27 Jubilee Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral. In November, 2003, he began a 3-year term as Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine.
He also serves as Grand Prior of the Northwest Lieutenancy (USA) of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and as Conventual Chaplain for the Western Association (USA) of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. He currently serves on the USCCB Delegation to the Mixed Commission for the Charter and Essential Norms for the Protection of Children and Young People, and on the Task Force on Catholics in Political Life.
[00575-01.01]
So its true! Friday 13th is an unlucky day!
Ping for your lists.
But when I go to CWN, and click on the link, this page that you posted comes up.
What's going on?
I don't know what to say.
Wow. Mouth dropping open.
Hey, maybe Benedict XVI knows something we don't know or he has his reasons for appointing who he appoints.
It'll be interesting to see who replaces Bishop Levada in SF.
Good one for your ping lists.
I don't know much about this guy, but from the snippets I've come across, he hardly seems like a defender of orthodoxy.
Maybe the Pope said "Will you just get one like Torquemada" and the curial officials mistook his accent for "William Joseph Levada."
I am speculating, but this appointment tells me this:
Benedict will probably be doing the real work for the congregation, and he needed a person as a secretary. This was speculated right after his nomination, that the person he would appoint to the job would be mostly there to keep the seat warm.
And perhaps having worked with him before, he considers Levada a good person to do just that. And he also might want an American POV over certain things.
And moving him to the Vatican, Benedict can appoint someone else to shepherd San Francisco who might have more backbone.
Doesn't Levada have to work closely with Benedict? I mean when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict met with John Paul twice a week.
Just a little bemused here, since Levada's involvement with ARCIC would have him in contact with squishy and fuzzy Frank Griswold.
LOL!
After my initial shock and horror, I gave it a bit of thought, and I wonder if Levada is perhaps being appointed because he's the next best thing to having nobody at all in the position. BXVI initially said that he wasn't going to fill the post, IIRC.
Levada is a very weak person. I read that he had worked on the Catechism with then Cardinal Ratzinger and was generally considered competent. However, he was obviously not up to the challenge of dealing with the aggressive gays and wild heterodoxy existing in the diocese of SF when he arrived there, and made some mis-steps that perhaps make him look worse than he is.
I suspect that under the leadership of BXVI, he will simply go back to being an orthodox (if somewhat uninspired) pencil-pusher filling a position at the Vatican. Someone else pointed out to me that under JPII, the head of the CDF had to do a lot of work that the Pope would normally do (that is, in responding immediately to challenges to orthodoxy), but that it is clear that BXVI can handle this task himself.
"Benedict will probably be doing the real work for the congregation, and he needed a person as a secretary. This was speculated right after his nomination, that the person he would appoint to the job would be mostly there to keep the seat warm."
I hope you are right because a person without backbone in this position could be nearly as disastrous as having a spineless Pope. The bishops would be able to run rings around him as they plough on with their adventures in blunderland.
Thanks, y'all for the analysis. My head's spinning. On to speculation on who'll fill Levada's job.
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Thanks for the ping, american colleen!
That's an interesting question! Incidentally, it comes back to me that when Levada was appointed, we all thought he was going to be quite orthodox. Obviously, the "SF effect" was too much for him. Whoever goes in there has got to be orthodox, and totally impervious to criticism and the dread vice of wanting to be liked.
It's official!
He was squishy in SF, he'll be tough in Rome just because he wants to please the people around him.
They should transfer Archbishop Pell from Sydney to SF.
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