Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Posted on 09/11/2005 2:40:25 PM PDT by NYer
Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and six other Roman Catholic bishops from the United States will spend a day at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps later this month during a Jewish-Catholic study trip to Poland and Rome with three East Coast rabbis. I see (Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan) as a future cardinal and a very important leader of the Catholic community.
- Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz,
executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University
This is not the first time U.S. bishops have visited the Auschwitz-area camps, the largest of the Nazi-run camps during World War II. Some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were killed there after the Nazis occupied Poland.
But this trip involves young bishops who were relatively recently installed in their dioceses, and thus represents an important planting of seeds for the future, according to Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.
The center, which is sponsoring this trip, also organized one in 1998 that included Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore and retired Cardinal Cahal Daly of Northern Ireland.
Dolan, a participant in the U.S. bishops' Jewish / Catholic Consultation, is leading the bishops on this trip, Ehrenkranz said.
"Dolan is unique in these groups," Ehrenkranz said. "I see him as a future cardinal and a very important leader of the Catholic community in the United States.
"I believe he will eventually be the chairman of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue in the United States. He's a very humble person, easy to get along with, very personable. I saw this as an opportunity to get a personal relationship with the archbishop."
The other bishops who accepted invitations all come from communities where the Jewish population is not as significant as it is in some other areas, Ehrenkranz said.
"Hopefully, this will give the young bishops an opportunity, as they grow into Jewish communities, to understand the dialogue with them and be motivated to that dialogue by seeing the suffering that took place," Ehrenkranz said.
The trip, from Sept. 18 to 23, will include dinner in Krakow with newly installed Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who served for 40 years as the closest aide to the late Pope John Paul II; a lecture in Rome by Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Commission for Interreligious Dialogue; and a lecture in the Great Synagogue of Rome by Riccardo di Segni, the city's chief rabbi. In Poland there will be meetings with Jewish and Catholic leaders.
"The good news, and the important news, is that, in a sense, we have a continuation of what one would hope would become a tradition of bishops and rabbis going to Auschwitz together," said Eugene Fisher, associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was a participant in the 1998 trip, which included a visit to the shrine to Mary in Czestochova.
The trip, which Fisher described as "very profoundly moving," helped dispel stereotypes on both sides. It included a look at Poland's long role as a haven for Jews and a seat of vibrant Jewish culture as Jews were expelled centuries ago from most Western European countries, he added.
Going with Dolan will be:
Bishop Robert Baker of Charleston, S.C.,
Bishop Richard Malone of Portland, Maine,
Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester, Mass.,
Bishop Placido Rodriguez of Lubbock, Texas,
Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Little Rock, Ark., and
Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, N.J.
Also participating will be: Ehrenkranz; Rabbi Irving Greenberg of the Jewish Life Network in New York;
Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York.; and
Anthony Cernera, president of Sacred Heart University.
Yes ... but how does Pope Benedict XVI concur? He'll be filling 6 slots soon. Is this "Dolan's" year?
Interesting.
He's doing a lot of traveling these days; he just came back from the World Youth Day. He may be an archbishop some day.
He's already archbishop-Milwaukee is an archdiocese.
It would be VERY nice if Abp. Dolan spent a bit more time in Milwaukee. He likes traveling.
Not that I blame him. All there is in Milwaukee is trouble; if I had the excuses, I'd be gone all the time, too.
Disappointing. Disappointing. Disappointing.
Before he is moved anywhere else he's got to show some more muscle and literally throw priests out of that diocese. They'd do better with no priests, no religious education -- nuthin -- than having Dissent Inc. inside of everything everywhere. Tear it all down to nothing and build up from the ground. Pull the stopper out of the bottom of the bath tub and let the dirty water out.
Okay, end of rant.
LOL! I'm with you.
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