Bishops Martino and Dougherty due to step down
Published: August 29, 2009
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Bishop Joseph Martino walks along Penn Ave. Friday afternoon. (MICHAEL J. MULLEN)
VIDEO - Bishop Martino: "can't comment" on resignation
VIDEO - Bishop Martino: "can't comment" on resignation
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Bishop Joseph F. Martino - a man known for his bookish intelligence, his outspoken devotion to pro-life causes and his often combative and insular leadership style - will end his six-year tenure as the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton on Monday, the day the Vatican is expected to accept his resignation.
(UPDATE: The Vatican has officially accepted Bishop Martino's resignation)
Sources within and outside the diocese confirmed the move Friday, and said the Vatican will also announce its acceptance of Auxiliary Bishop John M. Dougherty's resignation Monday. Cardinal Justin Francis Rigali, head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and metropolitan for the province that includes the Diocese of Scranton, will be appointed to serve as the diocese's temporary leader until a successor bishop can be appointed, the sources said.
Bishop Dougherty, a well-respected and admired administrator who has served as auxiliary bishop since 1995, submitted his letter of resignation to the Vatican more than two years ago, when he turned 75, but it has not been accepted until now.
Bishop Martino's resignation at the age of 63 is much less routine - sources in the diocese say it is due to health reasons - but the startling news seemed fitting for the prelate, who has been a source of frequent and growing controversy in the diocese since he was elevated to the role of bishop after Bishop James C. Timlin's retirement in 2003.
His tenure was marked by clashes with Catholic politicians, local Catholic universities, the Catholic teachers union, his fellow American bishops, and parishioners and parents tied to churches and schools he closed. At the same time, he was embraced by the local and national anti-abortion movement as an unflinching leader bearing a message about the importance of human life.
Officials with the diocese and archdiocese would not comment on the reported changes in leadership.
Bishop Martino stopped on Penn Avenue on Friday after a hair cut and said he could not comment on his resignation.
"I'm very sorry. You'll have to work with Bill Genello, OK," he said, referring to the diocesan spokesman.
The Diocese of Scranton announced a press conference will be held Monday at 10 a.m., but it did not reveal the subject or place of the event. It will not be open to the public, but will be broadcast live on Catholic Television, and a video of the event will be posted on the diocesan Web site.
In a press release, the diocese said it will not issue any comments prior to the news conference.
Donna Farrell, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said she could not comment on reports Cardinal Rigali will assume a temporary leadership role as the apostolic administrator of the Northeast Pennsylvania diocese.
She did say Cardinal Rigali is in Rome at a regularly scheduled liturgical committee meeting. He is expected to return today, she said.
According to a source within the diocese, there will also be a meeting Monday morning of the diocesan college of consultors, a body of priests responsible for electing a temporary diocesan administrator when a bishop's seat becomes unexpectedly vacant. Attempts to confirm that meeting with members of the 11-person college were unsuccessful Friday.
Cardinal Rigali is reportedly expected to attend the Monday meeting and press conference, but Ms. Farrell said she could not comment when asked to confirm the cardinal's attendance.
Persistent rumors about a change in diocesan leadership spread widely in June when Bishop Martino was in Rome - a visit sources say included a meeting with the Congregation for Bishops, the body that oversees prelates and plays a key role in determining their appointments. Diocesan sources now say the bishop's current move had roots in that meeting.
Speculation about Bishop Martino's future was further heightened earlier this week when The Times-Tribune reported his belongings were being moved from the rectory adjacent to the diocese's mother church, St. Peter's Cathedral, to a pastoral retreat at the church's former seminary in Dalton.
The Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia, a respected chronicle of the international church, reported Friday some of the bishop's belongings have also been transported to Philadelphia. That move could not be confirmed locally.
Bishop Martino said Friday he is moving to Dalton "because it's quiet out there" and referred to the disruption caused by last week's fire at Community Bake Shop Building three blocks away from St. Peter's Cathedral Rectory.
"After the fire the other night, I decided I need a little quiet in my life," he said.
The bishop's tenure in Scranton has been more cacophony than quietude.
Faced with a dwindling number of priests and a shrinking population of worshippers in one of the most Catholic dioceses in the country, he oversaw the largest consolidation of schools and parishes in diocesan history.
He waged a bitter battle with members of the diocesasn teachers union after he refused to recognize the labor group and instituted an employee relations program in its place.
He asked Misericordia University to consider closing its Diversity Institute after it hosted a gay-rights advocate at an annual dinner.
And he frequently castigated public officials, parishioners, Catholic universities and even his fellow bishops for what he saw as their failure to adequately uphold church teaching on abortion and contraception.
As early as 2004, he said he would "very, very seriously consider" denying Holy Communion to politicians who have supported abortion rights, then strengthened that promise during the prelude to the 2008 election, when he said he would deny Communion to public officials, including then-vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, "who are Catholic and who persist in public support for abortion and other intrinsic evils."
His most striking interjection into the debate came after his unannounced arrival at a political forum at a Honesdale church in 2008, when he criticized the crowd for discussing a document released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that defined abortion and euthanasia, as well as racism, torture and genocide, as among the most important issues for Catholic voters.
"No social issue has caused the death of 50 million people," he told the audience at St. John's Catholic Church, then added, "This is madness, people."
In several public letters, Bishop Martino criticized the abortion-related voting record of Sen. Bob Casey - a Catholic Democrat from Scranton opposed to abortion rights - whom he accused of "cooperating with ... evil."
He threatened to close St. Peter's Cathedral during Scranton's St. Patrick's Day celebrations if local organizers honored elected officials who support abortion rights; he sought documentation from four local Catholic universities to prove they do not provide or encourage the use of contraceptives; and, at the national bishops' meeting in Baltimore last year, he told fellow bishops they eventually will have to address their collective "reticence to speak to Catholic politicians who are not just reluctant, but stridently anti-life."
The bishop's high-profile controversy, and reports of low morale among the diocese's parishioners and priests, did not go unnoticed around the country and in Rome, church observers say.
"It's not the people who left the church that bothers Rome," said Joseph K. Grieboski, a Scranton native and founder and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Religion and Public Policy. "It's the people who stayed and are disaffected.
"People who are going to leave are going to leave no matter what, and the bishop became an excuse. It's the people who stayed and said, 'I stayed despite him,' that's what bothered Rome and that's what bothered his fellow bishops."
Bishop Martino sometimes publicly noted the strain he felt from the criticism that buffeted him since the start of his Scranton career. While he was presiding over the 2006 funeral of Monsignor Andrew J. McGowan, the bishop acknowledged some of those criticisms, saying they have weighed "more heavily on my thought."
But Bishop Martino was never apologetic about his outspoken stance on issues of church teaching that he thought were not being followed. In a March letter to a local college, he "offer(ed) this postscript to those who criticize me for taking public stances that may not be popular or 'politically correct,' or may not agree with their own personal notions of what 'progressive' Catholic doctrine should be.
"My job as a bishop is to promulgate the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church to all the faithful," he wrote. "I will continue to do so."
STACY BROWN, a staff writer, contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
314 posted comments
some of the Catholic schools. This should have been done twenty - thirty years ago.
some of the Catholic schools. This should have been done twenty - thirty years ago.