- Feb 5, 2002
- 187,880
- 68,891
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Here are three aspects of the outgoing archbishop of New York that have not received sufficient notice.
There’s a steakhouse on East 50th Street in midtown Manhattan, to which Cardinal Timothy Dolan and I would sometimes walk for dinner after a pre-prandial or two in his sitting room. The restaurant was less than a block away from the residence of the archbishops of New York, and the walk would ordinarily take two or three minutes.
With Cardinal Dolan, it often took 10 minutes, sometimes 15, because virtually everyone we passed along the way wanted to greet the archbishop, share a story, thank him for this or that, or just say hello.
I watched this time and again, and it reminded me of something one of Cardinal Dolan’s predecessors, Cardinal John O’Connor, had said when I asked him in 1996 what Pope John Paul meant. “What he means,” Cardinal O’Connor replied, “is that people know they have a pope.”
Not abstractly. Not as a historical factoid or Jeopardy answer. But as someone in high office with whom people believed they had a personal relationship that made a difference in their lives. Someone they could rely on. Someone they could look up to. Someone who understood them, empathized with them — in fact, loved them.
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
There’s a steakhouse on East 50th Street in midtown Manhattan, to which Cardinal Timothy Dolan and I would sometimes walk for dinner after a pre-prandial or two in his sitting room. The restaurant was less than a block away from the residence of the archbishops of New York, and the walk would ordinarily take two or three minutes.
With Cardinal Dolan, it often took 10 minutes, sometimes 15, because virtually everyone we passed along the way wanted to greet the archbishop, share a story, thank him for this or that, or just say hello.
I watched this time and again, and it reminded me of something one of Cardinal Dolan’s predecessors, Cardinal John O’Connor, had said when I asked him in 1996 what Pope John Paul meant. “What he means,” Cardinal O’Connor replied, “is that people know they have a pope.”
Not abstractly. Not as a historical factoid or Jeopardy answer. But as someone in high office with whom people believed they had a personal relationship that made a difference in their lives. Someone they could rely on. Someone they could look up to. Someone who understood them, empathized with them — in fact, loved them.
Continued below.
Cardinal Dolan: By No Means Finished Yet
COMMENTARY: Here are three aspects of the outgoing archbishop of New York that have not received sufficient notice.
