Like his predecessor, Cardinal Edward M. Egan, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan is very familiar with the workings of the church in Rome.The new head of the New York Archdiocese served for seven years as rector of the Pontifical North American College, the U.S. national seminary in Rome, and was a student there himself in the 1970s.
In addition, he was assigned for two years to the staff of the apostolic nunciature, or Vatican embassy, in Washington.
But Archbishop Dolan, who turned 59 Feb. 6, described himself in a 2002 interview as "a sort of fish-fry and bingo guy" who preferred being "in the field ... on the front lines ... with the folks" to carrying out the administrative duties of an archbishop.
A church historian, he also tends to take the long view in regard to any crisis facing the church.
After the French Revolution in the 18th century, the church was "in shambles," he noted in the same interview. "Many people thought the visible church, as we know it, could never survive. And of course it did."
Some might say the same of the U.S. church today, Archbishop Dolan added. But "we're still in the postconciliar period, the period after the Second Vatican Council, which was an epic event in the life of the church. We're still in that -- from the point of view of history, 35 years is like a drop in the bucket."
A native of St. Louis, Timothy Michael Dolan is the oldest of five children born to Shirley Radcliffe Dolan and the late Robert Dolan. His seminary education began at the high school level at St. Louis Preparatory Seminary South in Shrewsbury, Pa., and continued at Cardinal Glennon College in St. Louis, where he earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy.
He did his theological studies at the North American College and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and was ordained a priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese June 19, 1976.
After serving as associate pastor at Immacolata Parish in Richmond Heights, Mo., he was sent to Washington for advanced studies.
He earned master's and doctoral degrees in church history from The Catholic University of America. His doctoral thesis was on the life and ministry of Archbishop Edwin Vincent O'Hara, founder of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and the Catholic Biblical Association and a leading figure in the development of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.
During other parish assignments in the St. Louis Archdiocese, then-Father Dolan also served as liaison to Archbishop John L. May in the restructuring of the college and theology programs of the archdiocesan seminary system.
Beginning in 1987, he worked for five years as secretary at the nunciature in Washington. He returned to St. Louis in 1992 as vice rector of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, also serving as director of spiritual formation and professor of church history.
While working as rector of North American College from 1994 to 2001, then-Msgr. Dolan was a visiting professor of church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a faculty member in the department of ecumenical theology at St. Thomas Aquinas.
On June 19, 2001, the silver anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, he was named an auxiliary bishop of St. Louis. He was ordained a bishop Aug. 15.
A little more than a year later, he was named archbishop of Milwaukee June 25, 2002, and was installed Aug. 28. He succeeded Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, whose resignation was accepted by Pope John Paul II following the disclosure of a financial settlement of a sexual harassment suit brought against him.
Archbishop Dolan is the author of "Priests for the Third Millennium," published by Our Sunday Visitor Books. A collection of conferences given to U.S. seminarians in Rome, it discusses the joys and challenges priests are facing today.
Archbishop Dolan's move to the New York Archdiocese will more than triple the number of Catholics under his pastoral care -- from about 700,000 in Milwaukee to 2.5 million in New York.
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(Source: CNS)