Posted on 09/21/2016 4:38:29 PM PDT by Coleus
Archbishop Peter Leo Gerety, considered one of the most progressive Roman Catholic bishops in America during his 12-year tenure as head of the Archdiocese of Newark, died Tuesday, the archdiocese confirmed. He was 104.
Gerety, the world's oldest Catholic bishop, marked his 77th year as a priest and 50th year as a bishop in June. He spent his final years at St. Joseph's Home for the Elderly, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Totowa.
"He made an enormous contribution because of his love of the poor and his deep interest in African American Catholics," said retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who succeeded Gerety as Newark's archbishop in 1986. "He took the message of the Second Vatican Council as a call to action and devoted himself to trying to follow its directives in the churches that he led."
Archbishop Gerety, who was bishop of Portland, Maine, before coming to Newark in 1974, gained headlines when he conducted mass general absolutions to bring lapsed Catholics back to the church, formed a Black Apostolate, supported equal rights legislation for women and paid off tens of millions of dollars in diocesan debt.
He marched for civil rights in Selma, Ala., protested the Vietnam War, brought Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity to Newark and launched RENEW, an adult small-group spiritual revival movement that has spread worldwide.
"Today this local church of Newark mourns a remarkable churchman whose love for the people of God was always strong and ever-growing," Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said in a statement Wednesday.
"He served as shepherd of this great archdiocese during a time of spiritual reawakening in the years after the Second Vatican Council, and a time of deep financial difficulties," Myers said. "He very carefully led the church, her people and institutions through those challenges."
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Wow, that’s old! May God receive his soul in a welcome rest.
Heard of this guy ? Too bad he wasn’t more interested in saving souls instead of ultraleft political activism (antithetical to Christianity). Prayers for a misguided soul.
This guy was replaced/”retired” by the Vatican before reaching retirement age; his supporters said it was for his health - and he went on to live 30 more years.
Time magazine did a piece in 1984 (”Purifying Heat From Rome”) describing how then-Cardinal Ratzinger forced Gerety to remove his imprimatur from a heretical textbook; the behind-the-scenes dialogue had failed so it was formal & public.
From the Newark diocese’s own website: “Under his leadership, the Cathedral has, as Bishop McQuaid predicted, opened its doors to the world. This statement can best be exemplified in a precedent-shattering ceremony in which John Shelby Spong was consecrated in the Cathedral sanctuary Coadjutor Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. This historic event took place, at Archbishop Gerety’s invitation, on June 12, 1976. The Cathedral was filled to capacity, and thunderous applause echoed through the great nave as Archbishop Gerety embraced the consecrating prelate, the Right Reverend John Maury Allin, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America.”
Now he knows whether he was right or wrong, and there is nothing he can do to change any of it...
See #4
Well, the Lord knows.
Dixwell Avenue is a major thoroughfare running northwest from downtown. Gerrity persuaded a bunch of parishioners (and probably non-parishioner black militants) that they were being persecuted by city, state and national government and he led them in stringing folding chairs across Dixwell Avenue, and two other major thoroughfares (Goffe Street ad Whalley Avenue) to totally disrupt late afternoon rush hour traffic in a shameless attempt at attention grabbing.
Nonetheless, the Vatican promoted him to be consecrated as Bishop of Portland, Maine, and then to be Archbishop of Newark. His authority as archbishop was challenged by a long-time traditionally Catholic pastor, Fr. Peter Wickens, who refused Gerrity's orders to install a very objectionable Planned Barrenhood or SIECUS sex education curriculum in the parish school. Fr. Wickens, after reviewing the currculum, refused to obey on the basis that the curriculum would harm the parish children for whom he was responsible and that even his archbishop lacked the authority to require him to sin. It took Gerrity years to use court process to evict Fr. Wickens from his rectory.
Fr. Wickens thereafter practiced his priesthood as an independent priest, travelling the Northeast to say Tridentine Masses at motel function rooms and established a chapel of his own in Nrthern New Jersey where he said only Tridentine Masses. He left the chapel to one of the Tridentine orders of priests (FSSP?) in communion with Rome. Fr. Wickens died some years ago of cancer. I attended two of his Masses in Connecticut. He was a hero and a saint.
Pray also for the repose of he soul of Fr. Wickens. If those prayers are not necessary because he is already in heaven, God will apply those prayers to others in need of them.
God bless you and yours.
Thanks for your more detailed comments.
in other words, a flaming, left-wing liberal democrat.
I remember this guy from the early 80’s when I was still a (very young) trad Catholic. His name was a pejorative. He was solid on abortion but in every other respect he was a moonbat hippie Vatican II says we can do whatever we want guy, right down to the tie dye vestments and Mass for bongo drums in G minor. In politics, foreign policy and economics he was only slightly to the left of Gus Hall. His favorite color was definitely red and this predates our modern, very weird, inversion of the normal political color associations.
Shortly after the Knights of Columbus was founded by Fr. McGivney at St. Mary's in the early 1880s, the parish was given to the Dominican Order by the bishop of Hartford. The Dominicans have had a range of priests from right to left. One notable Dominican priest contemporary to Gerrity was Fr. James Keating, O.P., who I believe had been the heavyweight boxing champion of the US Navy during World War II. Fr. Keating was very eloquent, very outspoken, very conservative in all matters religious and political and ran a sort of CYO equivalent known as the Dominican Club.
During the academic year, Fr. Keating sponsored Dominican Club functions very Sunday night starting with a Rosary in the Church proper followed by a sermon from Fr. Keating relevant to the hundreds of teenagers who showed up ever week from the entire New Haven area and followed by a several hour dance in the Church hall at which Fr. Keating also presided. He was rough. He was tough. And he was by far, the most beloved priest in New Haven for decades. He was also chaplain to the New Haven County jail. Eventually, he was transferred to be the pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Columbus, Ohio.
In those days, New Haven's Catholics were mostly Democrats for ethnic reasons but quite conservative on social and military matters. They are gone now and New Haven has degenerated into a heathen leftist culture dominated by Yale "community organizers," snobby, trendy, affluent lifestyle leftists, black and Hispanic radicals.
Thank you for that great background info.
Happy to oblige! May God bless you and yours!
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