Capuchins Ascending?

St. Francis of Assisi never intended for his movement of lesser brothers to rise in the church ranks to positions of institutional authority and leadership. He never intended for his brothers to become priests or bishops. He welcomed priests into his fraternity, but he did not seek for his brothers to attain the status of any of the clerical orders. He never treated priest brothers preferentially over and against lay brothers. It is commonly held by tradition that Francis himself became a deacon before he died, but some Franciscan scholars dispute this.

That is why it is all the more eye-raising that today in the Catholic Church of today, there are three Capuchins who are bishops: John Corriveau, bishop of the Diocese of Nelson (British Columbia); Sean O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston, archbishop since 2003 and cardinal since 2006; and Charles Chaput, newly installed in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and likely to become a cardinal. In addition, Fr. Thomas Weinandy is executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Doctrine; and Fr. John Pavlik has just been named executive director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men.

This fact has not been overlooked by Catholic media in the U.S. The following link is a news analysis by John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter. Now I like NCR a lot -- its journalism is second to none; its progressive commentary is an oasis -- but Allen's fawning and toadying (Capuchins "punch above their weight"?), and his "in-the-know" shtick, are starting to grate on me. His writing hints and teases at intrigue when in fact there is no news here at all. There are reasons why O'Malley and Chaput became high-ranking clerics that have little to do with any perceived "favorite son" status as Capuchin Franciscans. For decades O'Malley has been repairing an institutional church broken by sexual scandal and financial woes, and he possesses considerable managerial talents as well as a knack for diplomacy. Chaput is a Church loyalist, and a staunch defender of orthodoxy. If anything, as Allen himself writes, Capuchins like these have recently assumed their positions of power and influence more in spite of their religious heritage than because of it. It goes against the grain of their charisms to ascend hierarchies, even if ecclesial.

[Sidenote: as one friar has explained to me, technically, figures like Chaput and O'Malley are no longer Capuchins. Once they are ordained bishops, they are released from their religious vows. This is a necessity, because bishops own property. And though Chaput no longer dons the habit of the Capuchin friar, O'Malley continues to wear it, even when eccleisal custom and certain occasions require him to assume the habit of a cleric.]

Archbishop Chaput says it best in the NCR article: there is no "truth or substance" to the idea of an intentional Capuchin ascendancy in U.S. Catholic leadership. And if the Capuchins of the coming generation hold fast to their heritage as a lay religious institute, whose fraternity is characterized by minority within the church as well as society, then the phenomenon of Capuchin bishops, much less cardinal bishops, will be remembered as a graceful break in our history, perhaps needful in the moment, but an aberration nonetheless.