Archbishop Chaput: Of the People, Perhaps for the Times

July 24, 2011 by Max Lindenman

Continued from Page 1

But there is more to Chaput than culture war. When he protests to NCR that his friends would call him "a very kind and gentle person," I don't think he's lying. Though not a smiler or a joker in the Archbishop Dolan mold, he can still speak in press conferences of being "formed" by the people of Colorado "with their warmth, their generosity, their humor and their love." A slight quaver comes into his voice, and the effect is very, well affecting. His servings of red meat leave plenty of room for sorbet.

But more to the point: although Chaput's never used the term on himself, he is, in his own way, a seamless garment man. In a forum on immigration reform, he called on listeners to "Help us to build a culture of life—a culture that holds all human life in reverence, from the unborn child and the immigrant, to the poor, the homeless, the infirm and the elderly." In NCR, he predicts: "If we don't love the poor, and do all we can to improve their lot, we're going to go to Hell." That's a worse fate than any he's forecast for Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden.

That Chaput will corral the mass of Catholic faithful back to a strict observance of Church teachings on sexual morality is doubtful. That he might rescue a smaller but more vocal group of Catholics from the brink of objectivism with incense is much likelier. Tellingly, when protesting the legalization of same-sex unions, he stayed on solid Thomistic grounds. "Same-sex unions, whatever legal form they take, cannot create new life," he wrote for the Denver Catholic Register. "They cannot duplicate the love of a man and woman."

Predicting dire unintended consequences for the legalization of same-sex marriage, Archbishop Dolan deployed essentially the same argument, but could not resist evoking China and North Korea as the ends of the slippery slope. Who sounded more like he was running for Congress last year?

If you're a Catholic who finds the Church's teachings on social justice easier to stomach than the rest, take heart. The poll numbers show that Catholics, on average, are neatly in step with the rest of the world on issues like divorce, contraception, and gay marriage. If these poll numbers really were the will of the Holy Spirit, it would seem like overkill to elevate leaders among the bishops who would simply legitimize them. Dragging the smallest and purest part of the hard right onto common ground with the rest of the Church might well be the greater challenge.

And Chaput, whatever else might be said about him, never shrank from one of those.

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About Max Lindenman

Max Lindenman is a freelance writer, based in Phoenix. He has been published in National Catholic Reporter, Busted Halo and Salon.

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