Wuerl a ‘teaching bishop’

Roman Catholic Bishop Donald W. Wuerl of Pittsburgh will enter the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in 10 days to accept his most prestigious role in nearly 40 years as a priest.

The incoming archbishop of Washington will receive his crozier — an ornate staff shaped like a shepherd’s crook — from retiring Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick amid much pageantry June 22. He then will be escorted to his throne as the new leader of 560,000 Catholics in Washington and five suburban Maryland counties.

A week later, he will travel to Rome to receive the pallium, a woolen stole — a long, narrow piece of fabric — that all new archbishops receive as a sign of their office.

Pretty heady stuff for a thoughtful Pittsburgh boy who says he has “never been successful at sound bites.”

All of Washington’s archbishops, except the first one, eventually have been named cardinals. Chances are excellent, considering the advanced age of Pope Benedict XVI, that Bishop Wuerl will be one of about 120 men who will pick the next pope.

Bishop Wuerl will return to the nation’s capital to fill the shoes of a larger-than-life cardinal known for behind-the-scenes politicking, speeches at hearings and protests, visits to the White House, letters to the president and Congress on topics of the day, and chairmanship of a task force on how to respond to pro-choice Catholic politicians.

Cardinal McCarrick’s successor is a bookish, almost austere scholar who reads ancient Greek and Roman history for relaxation. When pressed to name a sport he likes, he finally says he enjoys tennis and swimming.

“My life is really the church,” Bishop Wuerl says in a lengthy interview. “I’ve felt no need to get away from it.”

“He’s been an effective bishop in Pittsburgh,” observes Robert George, a Princeton scholar and writer on the Catholic Church. “He made his reputation writing a catechism before the church published its official catechism [in 1992]. But he has a big task in front of him. He’s shifting into a national spotlight where he’s never been before.”

Bishop Wuerl’s name has circulated for 10 years as the logical one to replace retiring prelates in some of the nation’s top dioceses. But other men were appointed to sees in Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago while he waited in the wings.

In July, Cardinal McCarrick reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. Once again, Bishop Wuerl’s name hit the rumor mill.

On May 8, Bishop Wuerl was called out of a meeting to take a call from Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the new papal nuncio to the United States.

“The Holy Father is transferring you to Washington,” he was told.

Bishop Wuerl denies he was angling for the job, one of the most influential posts in the U.S. Catholic Church.

“One of the signs to me that this really is what God wants … is that I never asked to leave Pittsburgh,” he says.

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