Archbishop WILLIAM JOSEPH LEVADA answers questions after Pope Benedict XVI named him as his successor as the Vatican's guardian of church doctrine on Friday, tapping a conservative theologian to be the highest-ranking American ever at the Vatican.
The new pope
developed a reputation for strong conservatism during his rule of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith. He cracked down publicly on several theologians
who questioned the church’s positions on clerical celibacy, contraception
and homosexuality. Some of these theologians were forced to sign statements
of compliance with church teaching or face excommunication. Others who were
also university professors were ordered to stop teaching.
When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a document calling
homosexuality an “intrinsic disorder," Levada’s predecessor
in charge of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Archbishop John Quinn, bore
the brunt of the anger of America’s largest gay and lesbian community
in the mid-1980s.
The AIDS epidemic was exploding when John Paul II visited San Francisco in
1987 and there were protests in the streets. Gay protesters carried placards
attacking Ratzinger by name.
Quinn was a quiet intellectual who showed leniency to various groups of practicing
Catholics who lived openly gay lifestyles.
So when Pope John Paul appointed Levada to replace Quinn it was perceived
by many as a condemnation of that leniency, and a repressive move on the Vatican’s
part.
Message to Americans: rules are rules
Pope Benedict’s
choice of an American, and a conservative thinker from one of the most liberal
cities in the country, has a special resonance for Catholics in the United
States.
American Catholics who have felt disconnected and misunderstood by the Vatican
in the past have often blamed the communication gap on cultural differences.
In pointing to the strict orthodoxy of the polish pontiff, and the German
doctrinaire, liberal U.S. Catholics would see them as “old world”
Europeans who didn’t “get it," when it came to American society.
By putting an American in the position of moral enforcer, Pope Benedict is
effectively muting that complaint.
Not only does Levada bring the understanding of a native, he also comes from
a decade of facing opposition as a moral conservative in one of America’s
most sexually permissive cities.
Pope Benedict is sending a clear message to Catholics in America and Western
Europe: The rules are not about to change in this administration.