Cardinal Bernardin:
Reese, Thomas J
SCARLET PROSE CARDINAL BERNARDIN Easing Conflicts and Battling for the Soul of American Catholicism Eueene Kennedy Thomas J. Reese Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, is without...
...Bernardin drifted back in memory to his childhood during that aching, Spartan decade of the thirties...
...Bernardin remembered how he had proposed to enter the seminary just after the conclusion of World War II...
...For example, here is Bernardin on the day he received his red biretta: Donning his clerical attire, Bernardin's face betrayed no hint that he recalled the reckless episode that had whirled through his life like a tornado near the end of September 1981, when excerpts were published from the journal-like tapes made by Greeley...
...As Kennedy explains: the book is "necessarily unfinished and leaves a satisfying aura of mystery, a suggestion of unknowability, a hint of tales yet to be told, of a destiny not yet fulfilled...
...What many readers will find most provocative is the book's treatment of Andrew Greeley's involvement in the bishops' conference study of Catholic priests, published in 1972 and the "conspiracy" to dethrone Cody...
...A sample: "Studying him [Bernardin] closely, one could observe the slight tightening of his jaw muscles and the small quick movements that, like an uncoiling rope behind a harpoon, trailed the contained but intense thrust of his concentration into any approaching field of obligation...
...Rather than blaming the media, would it not be better to admit that Bernardin made a serious error in appearing to favor one candidate in 1976, when he expressed disappointment with Carter's position on abortion but was encouraged by Ford's...
...Hmmm...
...As general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (1968-72), under the direction of his mentor, Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit, he reorganized the bishops' staff into an organization that has served the American church well...
...He cites few written sources...
...Kennedy worked with Greeley on the priest study and both are from Chicago where they lived under Cody...
...And anything liberals could consider objectionable is explained away by Bernardin's need to prove his loyalty to Rome...
...In addition, he was part of a group of bishops that helped to resolve the Seattle crisis...
...The book tends toward popular hagiog-raphy rather than objective reporting...
...I wish that Kennedy, the psychologist, had given us a deeper analysis of Bernardin's character...
...It is not enough to say that Bernardin is a Southern gentleman (so are a lot of bigots) and Italian (so are some reactionary autocrats...
...he wondered if his own decision to discourage chartered flights and gala festivities would set a precedent for the future....He thought of the advice that his mother had given him before his ordination to the bishopric eighteen years before...
...Bernardin could not look out at the familiar coffee-colored buildings of Rome streaming past the car window without thinking of the history and progress of the American church...
...He served the conference as president (1974-77) and has chaired major committees, such as canonical affairs, prolife activities, and the ad hoc committee that drafted the peace pastoral...
...Losing his father at the age of four, caring for a younger sister while his mother worked, growing up Catholic in the South, an Italian cleric in an Irish church, a phobia for conflict, a desire to please, a fear of hurting, a workaholic love of paper, all of this is described but not subjected to psychological analysis...
...Often Kennedy writes as though he is inside the cardinal's mind...
...Nor is it clear how much Bernardin helped the author...
...SCARLET PROSE CARDINAL BERNARDIN Easing Conflicts and Battling for the Soul of American Catholicism Eueene Kennedy Thomas J. Reese Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, is without question one of the most important American prelates in the post-Vatican II church...
...I am sure that Greeley's response will also prove interesting...
...Despite these handicaps, Eugene Kennedy has written a book that is required reading for everyone interested in the American church...
...In twenty-three short chapters, Kennedy follows Bernardin from his birth in 1928 to a seamstress mother-who is the most delightful character in the book-to his being head of the second largest diocese in the U.S...
...Whether Bernardin actually told Kennedy what he was thinking minute by minute that day, or whether this is simply poetic license, is unclear to the reader...
...It must be the latter unless Bernardin dictates his daydreams into a tape recorder...
...Kennedy gives no explanation of how he researched this biography...
...church...
...As Bernardin vested...
...Even Chicago archbishops are human and make mistakes...
...Walk straight," Maria Bernardin had advised her son, "and try not to look too pleased with yourself...
...There are actually few direct quotes from Bernardin in the book, and the lengthiest is from a December 1974 interview...
...Nowhere do we find Bernardin making a mistake that Kennedy cannot excuse or explain...
...He smiled inwardly as he recalled telling his mother of his change of plans...
...Since 1973 he has been elected to every synod of bishops, where he has served on the Council of the Secretariat of the Synod...
...Though filled with wonderful stories, the book jumps back and forth from topic to topic...
...He has been both loyal to the Holy See and politically adroit at getting the Vatican to respond to the pastoral needs of the U.S...
...For liberal church writers today, Bernardin is a heroic saintly figure, while reactionaries consider him a viper at the church's breast...
...Kennedy, the writer, describes his book as a psychological portrait, not an exhaustive biography...
...Kennedy uses this biography as an opportunity to "tell all...
...Whether it is possible to write such a biography while he is still alive is doubtful...
...John Paul, Bernardin reflected, had no memory of his mother, only the years of siege and occupation...
...Bernardin has been hailed for his col-legial style and his consensus-building talent...
...As a result, there is a crying need for a good biography of Joseph Bernardin...
...As the car passed through the gates..., Bernardin recalled the costly and elegant celebrations that had surrounded the appointments of the cardinal archbishops in that now closed golden era...
...It might have been easier to read if one topic, like the "conspiracy" against Cardinal John Cody, Bernardin's predecessor in Chicago, had been fully treated in one place before going on to something else...
...All this he did while being the archbishop first of Cincinnati and then Chicago...
...Scholarly objectivity requires time and distance, and the private papers which are unavailable today...
...Hmmm...
...Nor is his spiritual life laid bare, although there is a revealing story of his seminarians motivating him to pray an hour a day...
...t fulfilled...
...Bernardin remains a man we admire but do not really know...
...No mention is made of Jim Castelli's The Bishops and the Bomb or Charles Dahm's Power and Authority in the Catholic Church, although both are relevant to his treatment of the peace pastoral and Cardinal Cody...
...Stylistically, the book could have done with fewer adjectives and less purple prose...
Vol. 116 • November 1989 • No. 20
