New archbishops indicate the future of the Church

Two major episcopal appointments are being seen as indicators of the direction of the Catholic Church under Pope Francis and, at the same time, as attempts to win back those alienated from the Church.

Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will be the ninth Archbishop of Chicago, it was announced last Saturday. The selection was widely seen as Pope Francis’ most important appointment to the episcopate in the US given Chicago’s size – 2.2 million Catholics – and its historical prominence. He will be officially installed on 18 November, taking the helm from Cardinal Francis George who has led the archdiocese for 17 years and is currently battling cancer.

The selection of Bishop Cupich caught many church observers by surprise. The last time a man not already an archbishop was selected for Chicago was in 1915. In Spokane, Cupich was pastor to 100,000 Catholics and now, in Chicago, he will oversee a parochial school system that serves 80,000 students. Cupich led the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on child protection for several years and his 2010 appointment to Spokane came while that diocese was in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings due to settlements from clergy sex abuse claims. This summer, he paid off the last of the diocese’s external debt of US$6.5 million.

Archbishop-elect Cupich is widely seen as a moderate churchman, who has avoided the “culture warrior” model of episcopal leadership. In advance of the presidential election of 2008, he wrote an article in the Jesuit journal America reminding Catholic voters that racism, like abortion, is an intrinsic evil. And, unlike many US bishops, he did not criticise the University of Notre Dame’s decision to honour President Barack Obama with an honorary degree in 2009. Critics of the selection focused on Cupich’s 2011 instruction to priests and seminarians not to join pro-life protests at abortion clinics.

In Sydney, the Oxford-educated bioethicist Bishop Anthony Fisher, 54, is to succeed Cardinal George Pell as archbishop. A Dominican  who coordinated World Youth Day in Sydney six years ago, he has been Bishop of Parramatta in western metropolitan Sydney since 2010. He becomes the ninth Archbishop of Sydney after Pope Francis’ appointment of Cardinal Pell as Prefect of the new Vatican Secretariat for the Economy in February this year.

No date has been set for Archbishop-elect Fisher’s installation but it is expected to occur at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, in November.

There would be “no excuses, no cover-ups” over sexual abuse, Bishop Fisher said, committing himself to playing a leading role in regaining the confidence of Catholics and members of the wider community.