A Surprising Choice for the Next Pope: He Should Come from New Jersey
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April 25, 2023As soon as Pope Francis entered Gemelli Hospital for respiratory treatment, speculation began about which cardinals are in the running to succeed him. And now that the retired Pope Benedict has passed, Francis might even decide to resign if his health becomes an impediment. At age, 86, he seems to be slowing down physically.
Though prejudice still exists against advancing a U.S. prelate to the papacy, Joseph Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, might break through that wall. Cardinals are usually smart, polylingual — like Tobin — and well-traveled. Almost no one in the College of Cardinals can match Tobin’s globe-trotting experience.
During his 12 years as Superior General of the Redemptorists, an international order with over 6,000 priests and brothers in 70 countries, he traveled around the world multiple times and knows every Catholic nook and cranny. He has a photographic memory and uses it wherever he goes.
Moreover, he seems to be Francis’ favorite. In his authoritative “A History of the Popes,” Jesuit historian John O’Malley often pointed out how popes try to signal who their successor could be. John XXIII, for example, favored Giovanni Montini and made him cardinal archbishop of Milan, a prestigious see. He succeeded him as Paul VI.
Francis is signaling his favor for Tobin by appointing him to eight dicasteries — formerly known as congregations in the Vatican government. The most recent include the powerful one that vets bishop candidates, which can help shape Francis’ legacy. Last year, he appointed Tobin to the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, which settles disputes involving church, or canon law.
SIGN OF CONFIDENCE
Rev. Anthony Randazzo, Pastor of Holy Trinity Church, Westfield, called that appointment as a sign of confidence. “The pope trusts his (Tobin’s) judgment since he has no canonical credentials,”Randazzo said. “The pope likes (Tobin’s) common sense to make decisions pro pastoral instead of pro institution,” he added. He has also sent him to mediate some high-profile church disputes in Rome, South America and his old Indianapolis diocese.
Tobin also serves on the Pontifical Council for Culture as well as on five other Vatican boards dealing with education, economy, Christian unity, religious and apostolic life and the synod for bishops.
According to Redemptorist sources, Benedict favored Tobin to become a bishop the moment he met him. Once he ordained him in 2010, he assigned him to the Congregation for Religious. Tobin showed his mettle and ability to navigate the old-boy Vatican network without giving up his integrity. He refused to go along with the Vatican’s investigation against nuns in the U.S. for being too liberal. U.S. Sister Ascenza Tizzano, now Mother General of the Religious Teachers Filippini in Rome, called Tobin “a hero” for supporting women.
STRONG RECORD ON WOMEN
Tobin’s record on women, in Newark and beyond, is strong. Some speculate Tobin may have encouraged Francis to name about a dozen women to leadership roles in Vatican offices. For example, Sister Raffaella Petrini, secretary general of the Vatican’s governorship, has now joined the dicastery that vets bishop candidates along with two other women. Tobin’s Newark chancellor is Dominican Sister Donna Ciangio, and his personal canon lawyer is Sister of Charity Rosemary Smith, a first for any woman in the archdiocese.
Tobin is not liberal, like a previous Newark archbishop, Peter Gerety, was, but more open-minded than the average Catholic prelate. He greenlighted a Mass for LGBTQ Catholics at Sacred Heart Cathedral
in Newark in May 2017. He did not say the Mass but greeted the people by saying, “I am Joseph, your brother.” Christine Zuba, a trans-Catholic woman from South Jersey, joined some 20 gay and lesbian Catholics at a dinner with Tobin at his residence in Newark the next year. “It was a beautiful and amazing evening,” she said.
Some scholars doubt anyone from the U.S. would be elevated to the papacy. “At this time, I’m not sure the World Church trusts a cardinal shaped by contemporary American culture,” said Randazzo. Dr. Christopher Bellitto, professor of history at Kean University, agrees. “The American church is so incredibly broken.”
But Jesuit Father James Keenan, vice provost for global engagement at Boston College, said. “Tobin knows Rome and you want someone who has familiarity with Rome.” He believes Tobin stands a chance.
Could Tobin break the curse? Standing at 6-foot, 3-inches Tobin, now 70 and lifting 300 pounds daily as part of his exercise regime, he is no pushover. His Redemptorist priest classmates said he is a workaholic.
“I admired him because he was so down to earth,” said Rev. Philip Dabney now in D.C. Another classmate, the Rev. Peter Sousa, called Tobin “extremely brilliant.” The way he shepherds Newark is in line with the way Pope Francis leads the global church. And his secret weapon is also his family upbringing as the oldest of 13. For all he has accomplished in the church, he is quite humble. He would definitely advance Francis’ agenda. And undoubtedly surprise the church.
Very Rev. Alexander M. Santora is the pastor of The Church of Our Lady of Grace & St. Joseph in Hoboken and Dean of the area’s Catholic churches.
FEEDBACK:
At what stage is the pre-born not ‘absolutely’ something? Paul Mulshine (“A nationwide abortion ban? That dog won’t hunt.”) writes that Donald Trump, perhaps driven by polls favoring “pro-choice” opinions, seems to be backing away from the “absolutist position” on abortion that is exemplified by the lawsuit to ban an abortion drugnationwide by those the columnist calls “anti-abortion absolutists.”
However, it was by Trump’s consequential U.S. Supreme Court appointments that the nation-dividing Roe v Wade decision was overturned, in deference to state democratic dominium. Now individuals, through their elected representatives, must vote their conscience on the issue.
Forgetting the polls and the way people may currently sway, many will need to summon their moral bearings, hear the arguments and think and decide responsibly on the abortion question for the first time. Into this intellectual ferment strides Mulshine, short-shrifting the central debate by tagging certain “pro-lifers” as “absolutists.”
My question for Mulshine is: “At what stage in the reproductive process is the pre-born one not ‘absolutely’ something?” The final tolling of Roe is the school bell for Americans to become better equipped on the sanctity and science of pre-born human life. I wonder if Paul Mulshine is among those who need to pack their notebooks.
-Theodore F. Weltner Jr. Green Brook
We need a governor, not ‘his majesty’ We have a governor who is a past master of accumulating and spending other people’s money — whether it be investors’, federal, or state — for his personal and political benefit. He has no personal tie to New Jersey and cares not a whit for this state. How many of these half-million- dollar furnishings were produced and sold within New Jersey?
The purpose of government is to provide for the general welfare by administering collective goods and services. There is not one state agency or need that has been provided for and run efficiently under his tenure. He well knows how to use money to pander to his base and has no inkling of how to govern whether it be education, child protection, prisons, veterans, housing, vax distribution, senior care, licensing, you name it. What he has done “to the least of mine” is deplorable.
He well displays his personal “majesty” and how to “reek of pride” in himself and thinks he can project that to the people who, for the most part, will never see the inside of these rooms but could use something he doesn’t fathom—affordable housing. Let us all see what we can do to vote in a governor who will govern.
-Theresa Ward Edison
(This article was reposted from the New Jersey Star-Ledger newspaper.)
