There was a shift in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia that will bring an outspoken antigay religious leader to the helm of the city’s Catholic community.
Earlier this week, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of current Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali and named Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput as his successor.
Chaput, 66, will be installed Sept. 8.
Church law required Rigali to submit his letter of resignation when he turned 75 last year, although some have questioned whether the pope’s appointment of a successor was expedited by the highly publicized sex-abuse scandal in the local archdiocese.
Chaput comes to Philadelphia after a 14-year run as Archbishop of Denver, during which time he espoused myriad antigay positions.
Chaput made headlines last year for his diocese’s decision to bar two children, whose parents are lesbians, from continuing their education in a diocesan school. In a statement, the diocese said the parents, whose kids were at the time in preschool and kindergarten, were “living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals” and “unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment.”
In a newspaper column Chaput authored on the subject, he wrote that the Catholic Church does not claim “people with a homosexual orientation are ‘bad’ or that their children are less loved by God. Quite the opposite. But what the church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong, that marriage is a sacramental covenant and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman.”
A representative for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia did not respond to a request for comment on the archdiocese’s enrollment policy in regard to children of same-sex parents.
Earlier this year, Chaput was a leading voice in the effort to defeat a bill that would have granted civil unions in Colorado, a measure that fell one vote short.
Chaput urged Catholics to rally against the bill, and the Colorado Catholic Conference, which he leads, emerged as a strong lobbyist against civil unions.
“The civil-unions debate is about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience,” Chaput wrote in April. “They copy marriage and family and in the process they compete with and diminish the uniquely important status of both.”
The Colorado Catholic Conference invested nearly $100,000 in the 2006 effort that amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Chaput has pressed for communion to be denied to pro-choice politicians and, ahead of the 2004 presidential election, warned that those who voted for pro-choice Catholic Sen. John Kerry were “cooperating in evil” and needed to seek confession, although he maintains his comments were taken out of context.
In 2000, Chaput warned Denver-area priests against celebrating Mass for LGBT Catholic organization Dignity.
Calls to Dignity Denver and Dignity Philadelphia were not returned by press time.
Chaput, who said in a press conference Tuesday that he would not speculate on why the Pope appointed him to Philadelphia, pledged to, among other goals, seek to repair the damaged fabric of the archdiocese.
“No bishop will give more of himself that I will,” he said. “And no bishop will try harder to help persons who have been hurt by the sins of the past or work harder to strengthen and encourage our priests and renew the hearts of our people.”
A grand-jury report issued earlier this year resulted in several arrests and the suspension of nearly two-dozen Philadelphia Archdiocesan priests, although Rigali initially told Catholics that no priests in active duty had “admitted or established” allegations against them.
Rigali seemingly alluded to the scandal in this week’s press conference.
“I apologize for any weaknesses on my part in representing Christ and the church worthily and effectively,” he said.
Chaput has been lauded for his swift handling of some sex-abuse cases in the Denver Archdiocese, such as a case last year in which he quickly suspended a priest after allegations surfaced and cooperated with law enforcement.
However, Chaput led an aggressive campaign to stymie legislative efforts to lift the statute of limitations on child sex-abuse cases.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told PGN this week that he doesn’t think Chaput’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal will differ much from Rigali’s oft-criticized leadership.
“I think he will virtually be no different, except he will present a more accessible, gregarious personal demeanor that will likely disarm people. But, essentially, nothing’s going to change,” he said. “His track record in Denver has been abysmal and sadly we fear many citizens and Catholics will become complacent and assume he’ll do better when likely he will not.”
Several members of SNAP staged a protest near Tuesday’s press conference to speak out against the appointment and press for extended statutes of limitations and strict penalties for church officials who are complicit in covering up a crime.
“We encourage people to keep coming forward in Philadelphia because that’s what’s going to make children safer,” Clohessy said. “But we urge them to contact secular, not church, authorities.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].
