The cardinal issue
McCauley, Michael F.
Report from Chicago THE CARDINAL ISSUE LOOKING OVER THE CODY YEARS HOW TO EVALUATE the almost seventeen years that Chicago's Cardinal John Patrick Cody has spent as archbishop of the largest...
...Likewise, Concerned Catholics of Chicago, an ad hoc group of area priests and laity, have written first to Cody himself, then to both the apostolic delegate and the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and just last month to the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome...
...I did my duty, and if I had to run for election I would be reelected...
...Again, the letter was not acknowledged for almost a year...
...And certainly many have sympathy for him because of his age and poor health...
...Report from Chicago THE CARDINAL ISSUE LOOKING OVER THE CODY YEARS HOW TO EVALUATE the almost seventeen years that Chicago's Cardinal John Patrick Cody has spent as archbishop of the largest archdiocese in the country, years peppered by parades as well as protests, sit-ins and skirmishes with seminarians, squabbles with nuns, and confrontations with priests and laity...
...I wouldn't say that I had any truly close friends...
...ACP leaders had then written to Rome complaining that the cardinal's ' 'arbitrary exercise of authority" reflected "an underlying disregard for the human dignity of priests and people...
...The lowest amount of money targeted for collection in 1969 had not been reached in 1975...
...After hearing the cardinal assure them that he would "assist in every way" to clear up "doubts" that had been cast upon him, all joined hands and sang "We Shall Overcome...
...Now a federal grand jury is investigating the cardinal...
...This amount, triple the original estimate, greatly exceeded the $1.27 million spent to aid needy parishes...
...When resistance has surfaced, Cody and his vicar general, Msgr...
...Parishes that failed to meet their mandatory quota would receive bulk mailings of the paper for 40 percent of their registered parishioners and be billed for each subscription...
...Surprisingly, Cody might well be right - about being reelected, that is...
...And, in a rousing tribute, the Black Catholic Clergy of Chicago have staged a rally of some three thousand school children and black Catholics to thank Cody publicly for his educational and spiritual support to the black community...
...The cumulative effect of events in the Cody affair could, however, prompt a response from Rome this time...
...In 1973, the cardinal admitted to a local columnist: "No, I wouldn't say that I have a best friend...
...Not long ago, Cody told a local journalist that because of his leadership,"the archdiocese is a better place today than it was in August 1965, when I took office...
...Again, Cody recently irritated Chicago pastors when he demanded out of the blue that all parishes in the archdiocese meet a subscription quota for the official weekly newspaper, Chicago Catholic...
...Not so easily rebuffed, the ACP decided to go directly to the pope...
...When the Sun-Times recently headlined additional charges of financial improprieties regarding childhood friend and step-cousin Helen Dolan Wilson and her archdiocesan pension fund, not a few Chicago Catholics were angry at the paper...
...Clerical and lay protests of this characteristically arbitrary decree have had little result...
...For more than six months, ever since the Sun-Times disclosed that a federal grand jury was investigating allegations that Cardinal Cody had illegally diverted more than $ 1 million in tax-exempt church funds, supporters have been writing to Chicago's two dailies, the Sun-Times and the Tribune, proclaiming Cody "a man of unquestionable godliness," and declaring, "we love our cardinal - long may he live...
...Francis A. Brack-in, have insisted that adequate consultation had taken place...
...Delays, postponements, cancellations, unavailability, insistence on being the final arbiter and ultimate authority - all have converged to isolate Cody from clergy and laity alike...
...and (3) called for specific reforms in Chicago - "financial accountability, shared decision-making via a pastoral council, elimination of the 'corporation sole' status for the cardinal, and collegial procedures to consult the whole archdiocese in the selection of the next archbishop...
...Financial matters have been the occasion for controversy throughout the Cody years, but the central issue has been consultation...
...To some members of the ACP, the recent letters from the Concerned Catholics to the apostolic delegate and to Rome seem to promise little more than a similar series of letters in 1979...
...The cardinal himself sees things differently...
...No one, however, has called for Cody's resignation - not yet, anyway...
...The letters (I) asked Cody to answer "honestly, publicly and promptly" the questions raised by the grand jury...
...To date, nothing has come of the request...
...The Vatican acknowledged the letter one year later by directing the apostolic delegate to inform the ACP that Rome would consider only those requests that came from official church agencies, such as the priests' senate...
...It's no secret that Cody is likely to submit his resignation in December, on his seventh-fifth birthday...
...Almost never, however, were open meetings or hearings conducted...
...The president of the embattled priests' senate and the chairman of the moribund Association of Chicago Priests (ACP) have assured the cardinal of loyalty and support during this "personally distressing time...
...Cody and Brackin find them "nonproductive...
...Other Chicagoans fault Cody for his decision in the early 1970s to reduce subsidies to black parishes and consolidate black schools...
...Two local leaders of the National Coalition of American Nuns made public a letter in which they pointedly urged the U.S...
...To be sure, not all Chicago Catholics assess either the current situation or the whole of Cody's tenure nearly so sympathetically...
...Now the cardinal and the archdiocese face sixteen-month-old subpoenas that require information related to allegations of improper use of tax-exempt money...
...Both organizations still occasionally grab a headline or two, but it matters little...
...Those Catholics in Chicago who are frustrated by official church leadership, but have not entirely given up are shaking their heads in dismay...
...And senate agendas must be submitted to Cody for approval - yes, he does have veto power...
...Some Chicago Catholics still resent Cody's massive fund-raising effort, "Project Renewal," that was to have been his master stroke to finance Catholic school education for every Catholic child...
...Despite all the wrangling, the cardinal still retains a kind of grassroots allegiance from many women and men in the pews, mirroring in some ways the popular support long enjoyed by Chicago's legendary Richard J. Daley...
...In the end, Project Renewal was a disaster...
...Some local journalists have called the whole business Cardinalgate or Godscam...
...No close friends, though...
...Regardless of guilt or innocence, Chicagoans - indeed, Catholics throughout the country - perceive an urgency for greater accountability from the cardinal...
...Attorney to "pursue vigorously the investigation of Cody's possible abuse of fiscal power...
...Everybody is my friend...
...Cody's criticisms of the priests' senate as unrepresentative have undercut its authority...
...Similarly, protests against Cody's authoritarian ways by both the unofficial ACP and the officially-instigated priests' senate have been largely ineffective...
...And the already sensitive situation was exacerbated when the archdiocesan financial report - its first ever - showed that almost $3 million had been spent to remodel Holy Name Cathedral...
...The ACP has been defanged - partially done in, perhaps, by the fractious Young Priests' Caucus who promoted the unprecedented censure of Chicago's bishops...
...An unmistakable pattern has emerged in all of Cody's dealings with groups that ostensibly exist to provide collegial consultation...
...They formally requested an official Vatican investigation...
...Andrew Greeley, who has frequently referred to the cardinal as a "madcap tyrant," estimates that it will take "a hundred years to undo the damage" caused by Cody...
...MICHAEL F. McCAULEY (Michael F. McCauley is a free-lance writer and editor who lives in Chicago...
...I don't have the time...
...Time and again, Cody has argued that his unilateral decisions were justified because he alone had all the information to make a judicious decision...
...He's an old man and he ought to go to God in peace...
...2) encouraged some official intervention in the matter because "Cardinal Cody's poor health and the near completion of his tenure . . . only increase the urgency...
...In typical preconciliar fashion, little attempt was made to prepare the parties involved for the decision or to negotiate with them...
Vol. 109 • May 1982 • No. 9
