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Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, turns 80 on June 29 and is therefore no longer able to vote in a papal conclave.
Yet the cardinal continues in key roles five years past the mandatory retirement age of bishops, a sign of Pope Francis’ esteem for the Capuchin Franciscan.
In addition to heading one of the United States’ most significant archdioceses, Cardinal O’Malley is president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which has been meeting since May 2014, and is an original member of the Council of Cardinals, an influential body formed in 2013 to advise Pope Francis on the reform of the Roman Curia and other matters.
A public letter
O’Malley, who appears in public wearing the brown robe of his Capuchin order and likes to be known as “Cardinal Seán,” reflecting the Franciscan penchant for using first names, travels to Rome about once a month. Earlier this month he was at the Vatican for meetings of the Council of Cardinals.
“Once again, the theme of this meeting very much focused on the role of women in the Church,” he wrote on his blog.
But that was overshadowed by a letter O'Malley wrote to officials of the Curia in his role with the Commission for the Protection of Minors. The letter, made public on Friday, urges Vatican officials to exercise "pastoral caution" regarding the use of the works of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, who has been accused of having psychologically and sexually abused several women over the years. The cardinal explained that dicasteries of the Curia still use images of the Slovenian priest's iconography in their communication and several Catholic places around the world are considering removing these mosaics.
The cardinal’s letter came a week after a Vatican official, speaking at a gathering of Catholic journalists in the United States, defended the use of Rupnik’s art on its website and official communications.
Boston legacy
O’Malley is sure to be remembered as the man who came into Boston in the midst of a scandal that made worldwide news and led to significant change in the Catholic Church. In early 2002, The Boston Globe began to report on cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy and the archdiocese’s mishandling of those cases. The scandal led eventually to the resignation of Boston’s longtime archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law.
Boston needed a bishop who could right what was wrong, care for victims, and begin to restore the Church’s badly-damaged credibility.
Eric MacLeish, an attorney who has represented hundreds of sexual abuse victims, knew of O’Malley’s reputation from when he led the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, 1992-2002. A former priest there had admitted to molesting more than 100 children, and MacLeish represented some of the victims. He said that as the bishop, O’Malley “was very compassionate,” and “met with all my clients.”
“He did the right thing,” MacLeish told The Boston Globe.
Under O’Malley’s leadership in Boston, “significant resources” have been devoted to resolving the claims of sex abuse victims, the attorney added.
Pope John Paul II appointed O’Malley Archbishop of Boston on July 1, 2003.
Accountability and concern
In an interview this month with The Globe, O’Malley said that he established clear protocols, such as requiring all claims of abuse to be reported to law enforcement agencies. He hired a former prosecutor to oversee claims of abuse and ensure compliance with reporting requirements. The Church pays for psychological help for those who were abused and their families, he said.
“Cardinal O’Malley has been a godsend,” Thomas Groome, a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, told The Globe:
O’Malley, said Groome, held offending priests accountable and cared for victims of sexual abuse. He was the first and most aggressive church leader to address that issue, Groome said.
“He never tired of assuring us that we still had a rich, Christian faith ... even while the institutional church failed in its responsibilities,” said Groome.
O’Malley also coordinated the first meeting between a pope and abuse survivors – with Pope Benedict XVI in 2008. He arranged another with Pope Francis in 2015.
In O’Malley’s first year in Boston, the archdiocese settled about 540 legal cases for $84 million – a record sum at the time. Ultimately, settlement payments would top $170 million, the Globe said.
“We were in a terrible crisis,” O’Malley told the newspaper. “I think we’ve come a long way from there towards establishing a sense of peace.”
An archdiocese in "financial free fall"
The Globe pointed out that the archdiocese was in “financial free fall” when O’Malley became archbishop.
“It had a $15 million deficit in its annual budget, would eventually owe $32 million to the Knights of Columbus because of a loan that helped settle abuse legal cases, and both the clergy and lay person pension funds for the archdiocese were failing. There were more than 1,000 pending lawsuits against the church,” the newspaper said.
Unfortunately, the number of Catholic parishes has shrunk during O’Malley’s tenure, from 357 in 2003 to 249 today. Catholic schools went from 160 in 2003, with an enrollment of 55,000, to 92 today, with an enrollment of 32,000.
But the new archbishop would be the first to make sacrifices. Nine days after his installation, he announced that he would move from the Italianate mansion his predecessor occupied and into a rectory apartment next to a housing project in Boston’s South End. “As a Franciscan brother,” O’Malley said at the time, “I prefer to have the simplest quarters.”
Francis taps a Franciscan
It was not unlike Pope Francis' own decision to live in a simple apartment rather than the Apostolic Palace next to St. Peter's Basilica. O’Malley’s work in Boston caught the new pope's attention, and Francis soon appointed him president of the Commission for the Protection of Minors.
In this position, the cardinal issued guidelines for bishops responding to reports of sexual abuse by clergy and others working for the Church.
“The American cardinal pleaded so that the voices of victims can be heard” at the Vatican, said the France-based news service i.Media. “He welcomed the publication of the Motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, the fruit of [a 2019 Vatican summit on sexual abuse] which defines in particular the responsibility of bishops and religious superiors in the fight against abuse.”
Pope Francis asked the commission to oversee implementation of Vos estis, “so that victims of abuse have clear and accessible pathways to seek justice.”
The commission also was tasked with drafting an annual report – the first of which is expected to be published this summer – on the Church's initiatives in protecting children and vulnerable adults.
In March 2023, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, an original member of the commission, resigned, calling into question the body's competence, financial transparency and governance. Zollner also denounced the commission's inability to collaborate with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with the most serious abuses.
O’Malley said he was “surprised, disappointed, and in deep disagreement” with Zollner. Nevertheless, the Commission proceeded to work on its transparency, systematically publishing the minutes of its assemblies and making changes to the board of directors.
Early attraction to St. Francis
Born in Lakewood, Ohio, June 29, 1944, Seán Patrick O’Malley was the second of four siblings. His father was an attorney, and his mother was a homemaker, and an uncle was a priest. He attended St. Fidelis High School, a high school seminary conducted by the Capuchin Franciscan in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was inspired by St. Francis’s love for the poor, “his simplicity, his joy, his sense of being a universal brother,” according to the recent interview in The Boston Globe.
O'Malley prepared for the priesthood at St. Fidelis Seminary, also in Butler, and at the Capuchin College in Washington, D.C. He professed vows on July 14, 1965, and was ordained a priest on August 29, 1970.
He went on to earn a master’s degree in religious education and a doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese literature, both at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He also taught at CUA from 1969 to 1973.
This week, O’Malley’s alma mater announced the launch of a fundraising initiative to establish the Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley Endowed Chair for Hispanic Ministry and Evangelization that will reside in CUA’s School of Theology and Religious Studies.
O’Malley’s “love and dedication to Hispanic and Latino communities has remained an extraordinary example for the Church in America,” wrote Catholic University President Peter Kilpatrick.
In 1973, O’Malley began serving as Executive Director of El Centro Catolico Hispano in the Washington Archdiocese before being named Episcopal Vicar for the Hispanic, Portuguese and Haitian communities and executive director of the archdiocesan Office of Social Ministry in 1978. It was during these early days of his priesthood that O’Malley developed a strong commitment to the issues of social justice and care for new immigrants.
The road to Boston
But Pope John Paul II took him out of Washington in 1984, appointing him coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands on May 30, 1984. He was ordained a bishop on August 2, 1984, the feast of Our Lady of Angels, a significant date on the Franciscan calendar, at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. (Also, coincidentally, the cardinal's birthday falls on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.) He became the diocesan bishop of the Caribbean diocese on October 16, 1985.
Seven years later, O'Malley would find himself headed back to mainland USA. As bishop of Fall River for 10 years, from 1992 to 2002, O’Malley was able to establish himself as the local shepherd and make an impact by working with the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, especially on pro-life issues.
Then came a brief stint as bishop of Palm Beach, Florida, where he was installed in October 2002. Sadly, it was in the wake of scandal – the previous bishop having resigned after admitting to abuse of minors. O’Malley was there for less than a year.
Boston and blogging
Boston has been his longest tenure, and early on -- on March 24, 2006 -- Pope Benedict XVI created him cardinal. The pope also named him a member of the Congregation for the Clergy and the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
During a trip to Rome to take formal possession of his titular church in September 2006, Cardinal O’Malley became the first cardinal in the world to launch a personal blog, cardinalseansblog.org, which he continues to update weekly.
O’Malley is former chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He also has headed the Commission on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocation.
Future prospects
Cardinal O’Malley participated in the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013. According to The Election of Pope Francis, a book on the conclave by Vatican reporter Gerard O'Connell of America magazine, O’Malley received 10 votes at the end of the first round of voting.
“That an American received so many votes is proof that his personality and his action against abuse have left an impression on the minds of cardinals,” said i.Media.
Although the Capuchin Franciscan cardinal will not be able to vote in the election of another pope, O’Malley will be able to take part in the discussions during the general congregations that precede a papal election. During these sessions in the Sistine Chapel, all cardinals take stock of the pontificate and draw up the prospects for the next one.
With Cardinal O'Malley's birthday, the College of Cardinals will have a total of 236 members, including 125 voters in the event of a conclave and 111 non-voters. The United States is still represented by 10 cardinal electors: Raymond Leo Burke, Blase Cupich, Daniel DiNardo, Timothy Michael Dolan, Kevin Farrell, Wilton Gregory, James Michael Harvey, Robert Walter McElroy, Robert Francis Prevost, and Joseph Tobin.
