Chaput was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 to lead the North American investigation of a sex and money scandal of a late priest in Mexico once feted by the Vatican. Many have criticized Chaput for not speaking out strongly enough against the priest abuse scandal in the church.
Denver archbishop speaks in Fargo
By:
Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald
FARGO — Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, known as one of the nation’s most visible and controversial Catholic leaders, spoke this past week in Fargo to the faithful, invited by his longtime spiritual “son,” Fargo Bishop Samuel Aquila.
Chaput, 66, has been archbishop in Denver since 1997, after nine years as bishop in Rapid City, S.D.
Aquila, 60, spent his career as a priest in Denver until his appointment a decade ago as bishop in Fargo, a move no doubt aided by Chaput.
As archbishop, Chaput has made news and drawn criticism regularly that is disproportionate, perhaps, to the rank of the Denver archdiocese.
Several years ago, he was a prime mover in criticism of Catholic politicians, such as then-presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who support abortion rights.
Unhappy with how the New York Times reported that issue in 2004, Chaput admittedly since has “boycotted” the newspaper, refusing to talk to its reporters.
Chaput was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 to lead the North American investigation of a sex and money scandal of a late priest in Mexico once feted by the Vatican. Many have criticized Chaput for not speaking out strongly enough against the priest abuse scandal in the church.
Chaput also has not been shy about criticizing what he saw as undue “adulation” of President Barack Obama, as well as elements of the president’s reform of health care.
John Allen, longtime journalist with the independent National Catholic Reporter and a top Vatican observer, has said Chaput is one of the 10 most “consequential” of about 300 U.S. bishops. Chaput qualifies not because his charge is big, such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago or Los Angeles, Allen writes, but because of his work as “an evangelist, an opinion-maker, a writer and speaker.”
“Usually seen as a strong conservative, Chaput can be polarizing because he takes clear positions and defends them with relish,” Allen said in a March 2010 column in the NCR. “He’s consequential in somewhat the same way as politicians and pundits with bold views and the nerve not to pull their rhetorical punches: Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re hard to ignore.”
Born in Kansas, Chaput is the first U.S. archbishop who is an American Indian, a member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi. He’s an inspiration to all American Indian Catholics, said David “Doc” Brien, an UND alumnus who is former chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in Belcourt, N.D., who came to hear Chaput with a handful of tribal members.
A group from the White Earth Band of Chippewa based in Mahnomen, Minn., also came to Friday’s luncheon to hear Chaput. They met afterward with Chaput in a private meeting to discuss issues affecting American Indians.
The Denver archbishop spoke to about 500 Thursday night in the Ramada Plaza and Suites in Fargo, and to about 150 Friday at a diocesan-sponsored lunch in Sts. Anne and Joachim’s parish hall, at which he spoke on developing a culture of life.
While in Fargo, Chaput demonstrated the plain-speaking style that gets him headlines.
Urging the Catholics, some of whom drove for several hours to attend the event, to work smarter and harder against abortion, Chaput warned them against allying too closely with any political party.
“Remember that renewing the culture, not gaining power, is our ultimate goal,” he said.
To do that, Catholics need to take their place in the public debate without apology, Chaput said.
“Critics like to say that religion is divisive or intellectually backward, or that it has no proper place in the public square,” he said. “This kind of defective thinking is now so common that any religiously grounded political engagement can be portrayed as crossing the border between church and state affairs. But this is nonsense. Democracy depends on people of conviction carrying their beliefs into public debate — respectfully, legally and non-violently, but vigorously and without apology.”
American tradition means infusing politics with morality and religion, he said.
“Real pluralism actually demands that people with different beliefs should pursue their beliefs energetically in the public square.”
Chaput also took a swipe at President Obama, saying he showed “a peculiar kind of vanity or cynicism or detachment from reality,” in signing a 2009 executive order removing the ban on federal foreign aid dollars going toward policies facilitating abortion.
“An issue like abortion — an issue that involves the life and death of unborn children and the subversion of entire traditional societies — can’t simply be ‘put behind us’ with an executive signature,” he said.
Chaput said the time he spent as bishop in Rapid City gave him a love for the “warmth and goodness” of “Dakotans — both north and south…”
“They also have a sanity that comes from their closeness to the land,” Chaput said. “In the Dakotas, if you behave like a fool in the way you treat the land, or the weather or the environment, well, very soon you’re a dead fool. So, Dakotans get character or they get gone pretty quickly.”
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