To give outsiders an idea, the initial sensation Milwaukee Catholics experienced with the arrival of Archbishop Timothy Dolan to their battle-weary, gloomy archdiocese back in 2002 can best be compared to the feeling of cracking open the windows in a stiflingly hot attic in the middle of a blistering summer heat wave. With attic-level temperatures, it’s not just the heat but the near inability to even breath on account of the heavy air that makes it so unbearable. The Milwaukee Archdiocese was, in 2002, that unbearable, unlivable attic. Archbishop Dolan was, by analogy and by all appearances, that cool, crisp gust of air that blasted away the accretions of stagnant air and musty effluvia from the previous twenty-four years of scandal and mismanagement under Archbishop Rembert Weakland. Finally, it seemed, the dark night was over and a new dawn was upon us.
I was one of the many early enthusiasts of Milwaukee’s jolly new leader, a man who came across to Milwaukeeans as the long overdue total package: the gregarious uncle, your best buddy at the ball game, and that favorite professor from your college days. In terms of personality, the contrast from the previous metropolitan could not have been more apparent: Dolan was the extrovert, larger than life, an overwhelming force who engulfed you with charm, smiles and hearty slaps on the back. Weakland was elusive, bookish, the quiet introvert, lean in stature and perennially aloof. Dolan burst onto the scene with a refreshing indefatigableness, an empathy and charisma, veering sharply from the soporific auto-pilot mode of the Weakland era that had lulled so many bleary-eyed Catholics into apathy’s deep slumber. Dolan was a beaming ray of light to Weakland’s long, dark shadow. I had the pleasure of meeting Dolan on several occasions in small company (once at his residence in Milwaukee) and found his initial “getting to know you” shtick very disarming. He rested his arm on my shoulder as we chatted amiably in our little group about this and that. Offering a wide smile, a cigar and a drink, it was impossible not to be ensorcelled by his optimism, his courtesies and booming laugh. I, like so many others, believed things were going to be different henceforth. Considering the unparalleled mess that Archbishop Dolan was expected to clean up, one couldn’t help but feel badly for him and wish him the best as he set about disentangling us from the Weakland web.
Thus coming into his new position, Dolan could claim a large mandate and a significant amount of capital to do what he saw fit in order to set the battered ship of a wounded archdiocese aright. Translation: We trusted him to clean house.
Early in Dolan’s tenure as Milwaukee’s Archbishop, I had a long conversation over dinner with a well-connected priest friend of the archdiocese regarding the particulars of the Dolan Doctrine. Some, he noted, had hoped and expected there to be a swift, across the board purgation of the local leadership, that heads would and should roll in the aftermath of the outrageous scandal and mismanagement of the previous quarter century. Dies Irae was in order for the entire Weakland apparatchik. This was one take, an understandable one, I thought to myself, but I was told flat out that this was not going to be Archbishop Dolan’s approach. The alternative strategy, the one apparently taken up by Dolan, was dilatory. It consisted in an attempt to slowly win people over to his camp through sheer force of charm, a genuine display of good will, and an expressed desire to bury the hatchet. This Catholic charm offensive would allow Dolan to gradually earn the trust of the faithful as he ever so discretely set about implementing piecemeal changes within the archdiocesan structure. In other words, better to have the vox populi on your side before making sweeping tectonic changes. Well, okay, I thought. While disagreeing with the approach and the tactics (as I preferred a more aggressive, immediate extirpation of the ancien régime regardless of popularity forecasts), I agreed with the desideratum, i.e., that real change was in order and long overdue, even if it required some time and patience to take effect. But as the years rolled on, punch-drunk Catholics quickly lost their patience, as anticipated, substantive, yet always chimerical changes eluded them again and again and the status quo ante eerily prevailed in the archdiocese. Where was the liturgical renewal? Where was the reform of Catholic schools? Where was the outspoken critique and substantive disciplining of vocal Catholic dissident groups who,to this day, find a certain cozy sanctum in Milwaukee?
Perhaps as an outsider to the archdiocese, Dolan never really grasped how strongly local Catholics wanted to be rid of Weakland and every vestige of his reign. Over the course of the last eight years or so, Weakland’s repeated special appearances across the archdiocese in the Dolan era truly stupefied a large number of Catholics who had hoped for a new chapter, a page definitively turned. Why was Weakland allowed to maintain a high profile in the archdiocese after his downfall, appearing at ordinations, archdiocesan events, confirmations, etc.? To many Catholic families, the relentless and ubiquitous Weakland Come-Back Tour was nothing short of scandalous, surreal even. It was as though Catholics were being told to forget what transpired there. The fresh breeze everyone initially thought had swept into Milwaukee turned out to be merely recycled air, not unlike that dry, fusty stuff that blasts out of the overhead vents on a plane.
Milwaukee-area Catholics await the announcement of their next leader. Prayers are already being offered for the selection process and for man who will have such monumental challenges waiting for him.
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