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Sunday, September 22, 2002

By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Though he comes from an obscure diocese, reporters who cover the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops listen when Bishop Anthony Bosco of Greensburg speaks.

	Bishop Anthony Bosco has reached the mandatory retirement age of 75, but the Vatican has made no move to unseat him. (V.W.H. Campbell, Post-Gazette)

He is known for straight talk. It was never more apparent than in 1988, when some Christians protested the impending release of "The Last Temptation of Christ," a film that depicted the dying Jesus having a sexual fantasy.

Bosco, then chairman of the U.S. bishops communications committee, was invited to preview the film. He pronounced it "boring ... but probably not blasphemous."

If Christians shut up, it would die a quick death at the box office, Bosco said. His advice was not heeded.

Locally, he has sometimes raised the rancor of parishioners through his efforts to prepare for a future with fewer priests, which has meant closing some churches. But those who have wanted to correspond with him can do so: Bosco personally opens every letter and e-mail addressed to him. He answers most himself.

When he turned 75 on Aug. 1, church law required him to submit his resignation. But Pope John Paul II may take months, if not years, to accept it. Whether he stays in place for a little or a long time, he has no regrets about his decision to become a priest.

"In retrospect, to the extent that anybody can be sure of what they are supposed to do in life, I think I'm where God wanted me," he said.

The son of a North Side tailor, Bosco was drawn to the priesthood by the example of pastors at Mary Immaculate parish. He was ordained in 1952, and embarked into what he hoped would be a long ministry as a parish priest.

He still reminisces fondly about his three years at St. Patrick in Canonsburg, but 1955 was his last year in a parish.

Bishop John Dearden sent him to study canon law in Rome. Bosco wept the night before he left.

"In those days, you saluted and said, 'Yes sir,' and you went," he said.

He returned to work in the chancery, but found a pastoral outlet as assistant chaplain at Mercy Hospital. During Vatican II, he shuttled papers to Bishop John Wright in Rome. His ministry has been shaped by Wright's prediction that it would take 50 years for Catholics to understand the renewal envisioned by the council, which ended in 1965.

When he became an auxiliary bishop in 1970, Bosco chose as his motto a phrase from the instructions a bishop is given at his ordination: "To serve, not to reign."

In 1987, when he became bishop of Greensburg, he announced that his plan for the diocese was "Vatican II."

The council was not about changing the Mass from Latin to English, he said. That simply reflected the core message that the Eucharist is the highest and most sublime act of the church, and that laypeople must be actively involved in its celebration. And that requires a laity that is educated in the faith and active in the church.

That led to a 15-year flurry of initiatives, including a sweeping effort to transform parish councils that mostly did fund raising into pastoral councils that helped the pastor set the vision for the parish. Those parish-level pastoral councils select representatives to 18 regional pastoral councils that plan ministry in their local area. The regional councils in turn choose representatives to a diocesan council that assists Bosco with long-range planning.

"He is trying to bring people to a consensus, which is not a concept that is common in the church," said Elaine Swaney, a member of the diocesan pastoral council from Chalk Hill, Fayette County.

Empowering others

During Bosco's tenure, the number of Catholics in the four-county diocese has declined from 215,000 to 188,000, closely paralleling the decline in the population of Westmoreland, Indiana, Fayette and Armstrong counties. At the same time, the number of active diocesan priests has plummeted from 155 to 109. Mergers have reduced the number of parishes from 116 to 103, 18 without a resident priest.

Despite protests, including one that went all the way through the Vatican court system, the mergers were carried out only after extensive grass-roots consultation.

"The bishop gave the people what they wanted here," said the Rev. Joe Bonafed, pastor of Christ the King in Leechburg, a recent merger of three parishes and a chapel. "This was a grass-roots decision. The bishop gave us a chance to chart our own destiny."

Bosco's greatest gift is that he allows others to use theirs, said Bill Merchant, a lawyer from Irwin who is moderator of the pastoral council for Region Seven.

"He has such an empowering leadership style, meaning he is very secure in himself. He motivates both clergy and laypeople to use their gifts in leadership, and he is a cheerleader for them. He doesn't overly micromanage. He sets the vision and encourages people to execute the vision," Merchant said.

"This is something new for Catholics. When I was raised, you went to church and listened and obeyed. We are still obeying, but we are out doing the work of the church and not leaving it to the clergy."

Bosco has prepared his parishes for the future, said Mary Ann Gubish, director of the diocesan Office of Pastoral Life and Planning.

"His critics will come out and nail him on the small things. It's a matter of developing people's minds to see the bigger picture," she said. "He gets criticized by people who want what they want, and those people aren't consultative, either. They just want it their own way."

Bosco inherited a diocese in the red. At the end of his first full fiscal year, he had produced a $216,000 surplus and has kept the books mostly in the black. Through major fund-raising campaigns, the diocesan endowment has risen from about $8 million to about $28 million.

Recently, there were complaints when he changed the system of tuition subsidy from a flat rate to a sliding scale on which poor parishioners got more financial help than wealthy ones.

"I had people having a fit here because I asked surgeons to pay the full cost for their kid," Bosco said.

"I was accused of being a communist."

Perhaps his greatest brush with controversy was his role in drafting "The Many Faces of AIDS," a document that was denounced by several powerful cardinals and the head of the Vatican's doctrinal office because it suggested that the church could tolerate education about condom use to help prevent the spread of the fatal disease. The document was approved by the U.S. bishops' administrative board in 1987.

One passage said, "Educational efforts, if grounded in the broader moral vision [for sexuality] ... could include accurate information about prophylactic devices."

"I haven't changed my opinion on it one bit," Bosco said. "It was an attempt on our part to answer Catholic health-care workers who said, 'What do we do with the active gay who's HIV positive?' "

Homeward bound

Locally, many of Bosco's efforts are aimed at renewing the Sunday Mass. A diocesan rule that Masses must begin at least two hours apart is intended to avoid a rushed, assembly-line tone. Bosco has infuriated traditionalists who want him to approve a Latin Mass. His priest's council has rejected it, saying it conflicts with parish commitments and that no qualified priest is available.

Currently, when his marriage tribunal, the church court that handles annulments, receives official documents in Latin from Rome, he is the only chancery official who can translate.

Once he retires, "I've told them, if you come and ask me to translate Latin documents for the tribunal, I'm going to charge," he said.

What will bring a sense of awe to the Mass is not a language that few can speak but better education about the faith, he said.

Bosco was involved in the U.S. bishops' dispute with some Vatican officials over the use of inclusive language to describe human beings in the liturgy. Efforts to change "men" to "men and women" or "he" to "they" were rejected in Rome.

"I think it's 'the F word' -- feminism -- that frightens some people," he said.

But feminism covers a broad spectrum, he said. Thirty years ago, he discovered that nuns who worked in Pittsburgh parishes were paid less than religious brothers who did similar work.

"I said this doesn't make sense. It's unjust. Does that make me a feminist?" Bosco said.

Because of the sex abuse scandal that engulfed the Catholic church in the United States, the months leading up to his 75th birthday were the most difficult of his ministry.

"Its been horrible, the decisions I've had to make just in this diocese," Bosco said.

He banned five priests from ministry after a search of old files and some new complaints about old offenses. Two of the men were already retired and a third was a little-known military chaplain; but some parishioners have reacted angrily to the removal of the other two. Despite a heavy heart over the harm done by some priests, the apathy of some bishops and the difficulty of his own decisions, Bosco says he's still not eager to leave.

But when the time comes, he plans to spend more time teaching courses like the online religious education class he now proctors under the sponsorship of the University of Dayton. And he will take even longer walks with Joshua, his West Highland white terrier.

"He is my joy and my comfort. He has enriched my life, no matter what kind of a day I have here," Bosco said.

Joshua is one reason Bosco wanted to retire to a home of his own, rather than to Neumann House, a diocesan nursing home for priests, as his ailing predecessor had.

But that plan drew fire from some parishioners who said the diocese shouldn't have to pay for a new residence for Bosco when it had existing quarters available to him. The policy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is that a diocese must provide a residence, car and office help for its retired bishop.

The diocese planned to build a house on a tract it already owned in Unity, using money from the sale of other lots in the same tract. When Bosco no longer needed it, the house would be sold or turned into the residence of the active bishop, because the current residence is aging, Bosco said.

When the protest erupted, Bosco told his finance council that he would pay for the house himself, from money that he had saved and invested over 50 years of frugal life in church housing. He expects the total cost to be less than $300,000, and some people have offered to donate money or materials and furnishings toward its construction, which will make the cost to Bosco far less. He intended to will all of his money to the diocese, so willing the house to the diocese will accomplish the same thing, he said.

Bosco believes his greatest legacy to his successor and to the diocese will be the empowerment of a strong laity.

"They used to call the laity the sleeping giant. I don't think our giant is asleep," he said.