A Tale of 2 Archbishops: Capuchins O’Malley and Chaput Mark Golden Jubilees
National Catholic Register, 01 September 2020
Much of the recent history of the Catholic Church in the United States can be told in the lives of these two men, who were both ordained Aug. 29, 1970.
It is not a tale of two cities, but rather two archbishops. And while it has something of the best of times, it also has the worst of times — both a season of Light, and a season of Darkness, to borrow Dickens.
Much of the recent history of the Catholic Church in the United States can be told in the lives of two men ordained on the same day 50 years ago, Aug. 29, 1970.
It was “King Herod’s birthday,” as Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston sometimes characterizes his ordination day, the feast day of the beheading of St. John the Baptist (Matthew 14:1-12). He shares the same ordination day with his fellow Capuchin friar, Archbishop Charles Chaput, recently retired from Philadelphia. Cardinal O’Malley was ordained in Pittsburgh; Archbishop Chaput was ordained in Victoria, Kansas.
On the two men, I am not neutral. I admire both prelates, and both have been very kind to me over the years.
As two of the most prominent bishops of their generation celebrated their golden jubilees on Saturday, their successive missions tell an important story about the life of the Church in our time.
Born 90 days apart in 1944 (Cardinal O’Malley is older), they both entered Capuchin life and priestly formation in the turbulent 1960s. For men of that era to continue through to ordination and persevere afterward was no small thing. Perhaps that perseverance — alongside their superabundant natural gifts — at a time of massive defections and disarray in the priesthood marked them out to become young bishops. Cardinal O’Malley was sent to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1984, while Archbishop Chaput went to Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1988.
They were already pastorally bold. Archbishop Chaput was rising in Capuchin leadership in the then newly-established western American province, and Cardinal O’Malley had become a true shepherd to the Hispanic, Portuguese and Haitian communities in Washington, D.C., as director of El Centro Católico Hispano. But the Church called them to be bishops in small dioceses while they were young.
Given the growing Roman tendency for bishops to be moved around, it was certain that there would be more appointments on the way. Seven dioceses, in fact, between the two of them.
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