(Though O’Malley and DiMarzio turned 75 in the same month, to date, the Boston process has not yet been initiated.)
as archbishop of Boston when the handover of the nation’s fourth-largest diocese is eventually broached. Nonetheless, his considerable skillset in terms of nuts-and-bolts governance has long been admired by Francis’ current crop of hat-makers, so much so that, until now, his name was atop the credible field of contenders to succeed Cardinal Seán O’Malley OFM Cap. In the context of Brooklyn, while anyone taking DiMarzio’s place would inevitably be seen as an octane-lowering choice in terms of personality, Brennan in particular is decidedly not a headline machine. Marked out early as a rising star, he was vicar-general of Long Island’s 1.5 million-member fold by 40, then raised to the bench as Bishop William Murphy’s hand-picked auxiliary a day after turning 50. In that light, it’s telling that Francis has opted for a very comfortable choice, both in terms of the administrative and pastoral dynamics that make up what might just be the most unique diocese in the US church.īeyond having spent his life in the neighboring diocese of Rockville Centre, Brennan has already lived in his new charge, having attended the Vincentian-run St John’s University in Queens. Given the host of changes and challenges facing the outer boroughs, the Brooklyn succession could’ve been handled any number of ways. Yet on the whole, much as the diocese has traditionally prided itself on being the church of “the peripheries” in the nation’s largest city well before Francis popularized the term, if anything, today’s Brooklyn and Queens is more at the center of New York power and consequence than at any time in living memory, a clout underscored by the pending handoff of the mayor's office from one Brooklynite to another. At the same time, while the diocese’s long history as the ultimate nexus of the American “melting pot” – which saw Brooklyn launch the global church’s first diocesan-level ministry for immigrants 50 years ago – has continued unabated, the reality of African, Asian and Caribbean emigres overtaking the earlier waves of Europeans and Hispanics has put new demands on the ecclesial talent pool, all as the aging infrastructure of the “city of churches” makes the solvency of its famously complex and sprawling apparatus an ever more urgent concern.
Spirit whisperings board torrent#
Well beyond the transition at hand, the Brooklyn church itself has undergone a remarkable evolution over DiMarzio’s 18-year tenure, headlined by a torrent of gentrification that’s upended long-standing ethnic bastions with a stratospheric infusion of wealth and development, and the tensions that come with it. Andrew Cuomo, to the Supreme Court, winning a unanimous “shadow docket” ruling that overturned the state’s pandemic capacity limits on church attendance as a violation of religious freedom.
Nick being Nick, however, another piece of his final lap is an even bigger point of pride: never one to shy away from war (and the louder it is, the better), late last year DiMarzio took his longtime nemesis, now-former New York Gov. Arguably the “central casting” image of a Brooklyn prelate – down to a hard-charging style that’s seen him widely referred to at home as “The Czar” – today’s move comes a month after DiMarzio was cleared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of two allegations of sexual abuse dating to the 1970s in his native Newark, making him the only US prelate to date to emerge unscathed from an investigation under Vos estis lux mundi, the 2019 norms for cases of direct abuse or mishandling of cases by bishops. At Roman Noon on this feast of the Archangels, the Pope named Long Island’s own Bishop Robert Brennan – the 59 year-old head of Ohio’s capital church in Columbus – as the eighth bishop of Brooklyn: the US’ fifth-largest diocese, its 1.8 million members comprising the nation’s largest non-metropolitan see.Īfter less than three years in Buckeye Nation, Brennan succeeds one of the bench’s most formidable players, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who reached the retirement age of 75 in June 2019.
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