The new archbishop of New York, viewed by some as a leader in the mold of Pope Francis, may push the head of the Roman Catholic Church on Long Island to be more assertive on hot-button issues such as immigration, some local Catholics said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Bishop Ronald Hicks, currently bishop of Joliet, Illinois, won\u2019t have any direct control over Bishop John Barres of the Diocese of Rockville Centre since all bishops report directly to the pope. But his presence may influence Barres, church observers said.<\/p>\n
“I think it will impose more pressure on him to work for social justice and obviously to be stronger in his support for immigrants,” said Jim Morgo, a longtime Catholic from Blue Point.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think he’ll criticize Barres, but if Hicks comes out and says that what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doing is against Roman Catholic teaching, that would have to pressure other clergy and particularly the hierarchy,” he said.<\/p>\n
Morgo and other Catholics including supporters of Barres said they believe he has generally been cautious on many issues, but the presence of an outspoken archbishop of New York \u2014 one of the most important posts in the Catholic Church in the U.S. \u2014 might change that.<\/p>\n
Others don\u2019t think so. Rick Hinshaw, a former editor of The Long Island Catholic newspaper, said he is not certain Hicks can even be classified as a “liberal” since he has taken a variety of stances, including supporting the Latin Mass favored by more traditional Catholics.<\/p>\n
He indicated Hicks may be more in the style of Leo himself, who is seen as a soft-spoken “unifier” in the church though he has also taken a strong stand against President Donald Trump\u2019s anti-immigration campaign.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think you can just assume he’s going be a problem for Bishop Barres because he’s in the mold of Pope Francis,” Hinshaw said. “I think that’s probably oversimplified.”<\/p>\n
“I would look for them to have a very positive relationship,” he said. “In some ways (Barres) too has been misportrayed as very conservative. I think he’s very cautious in speaking out on things … but I don’t think he’s going to be turned off by anything that the new archbishop is going to bring.”<\/p>\n
Barres said in a statement Thursday that he hopes to collaborate with Hicks, while his spokesman dismissed concerns about any liberal-conservative division and pressure.<\/p>\n
“I look forward to working with Archbishop-designate Hicks on matters of shared concern for Catholics throughout New York State and for the common good, particularly upholding and safeguarding the dignity and sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death,” Barres said. That appeared to be reference to abortion and physician-assisted suicide.<\/p>\n
His spokesman, the Rev. Eric Fasano, said that “secular, political terms such as \u2018liberal\u2019 or \u2018conservative\u2019 do not have an objective or standard application in the Church and are often used as tools for division.”<\/p>\n
Barres was among bishops nationwide who in November signed a public statement criticizing aspects of Trump\u2019s immigration offensive. He also played a key role in a statement put out by the Catholic bishops of New York State.<\/p>\n
Richard Koubek, an immigrant advocate from Suffolk County who used to work on public policy for Catholic Charities, said Hicks will have an outsized influence partly because he will be based in media-heavy Manhattan including St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral, seen as the heart of the Catholic Church in the U.S.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think he’ll (Barres) have to take any directives from Hicks but it\u2019s a tone set, and I think it\u2019s going to be very different from what we\u2019ve had” with outgoing Cardinal Timothy Dolan, he said. “People will compare what\u2019s happening in Manhattan to what\u2019s happening here.”<\/p>\n
While Barres signed the bishops\u2019 statements on immigrant, he hasn\u2019t done much more, Koubek said. He hopes Hick\u2019s presence will change that.<\/p>\n
“To me right now, the most pressing moral challenge on Long Island is the roundup of immigrants in violation of basic due process and basic Catholic social teaching,” Koubek said. “And the only thing that we’ve heard from him is: why don’t you read the statement that he helped to write.”<\/p>\n
\n\tBart Jones has covered religion, immigration and major breaking news at Newsday since 2000. A former foreign correspondent for The Associated Press in Venezuela, he is the author of \u201cHUGO! The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new archbishop of New York, viewed by some as a leader in the mold of Pope Francis,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8015,9,24,11,10,7675,8016],"class_list":{"0":"post-74837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-nassau","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-religion","14":"tag-suffolk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}