Hartford Gets Its First “Team Francis” Archbishop. Here Are My Thoughts.

For the first time in his decade-long pontificate, Pope Francis has appointed to Connecticut a “Pope Francis Bishop.” In his public remarks yesterday, our new bishop said that he uses the preferred pronouns of those who identify as transgender. And that he would “encourage the clergy, priests and everyone else to do the same.”

Many of you have written to me to ask my thoughts about it. I have quite a few. Let’s begin by putting the matter in its proper context.

The Archdiocese of Hartford held a 30-minute press conference yesterday to announce that Burlington Bishop Christopher Coyne has been appointed by Pope Francis to be Coadjutor Archbishop. Our current Archbishop, Leonard Blair, will retire in 2024 on or about his 75^th birthday. At that point, the Coadjutor will become our new Archbishop.

Throughout the first 25 minutes of the press conference, Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne said many wonderful things. I would like to highlight some of them to the lay faithful of the Archdiocese of Hartford.

In the last five minutes, the Coadjutor Archbishop made his remarks about those who identify as transgender. I would like to address the lay faithful on what he really said. And I would like to address the Coadjutor Archbishop on why I respectfully disagree.

A Certain Paradigm

But before I address either of my intended audiences, Hartford’s lay faithful and our next Archbishop, I need to say some things I have never said publicly about the state of the Church in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Three.

There is a certain paradigm, a way of having these conversations in the Very Online Catholic world, that has never sat right with me.

Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne is a successor to the Apostles. He will be the center of unity for the Church in Hartford. The man is literally our link to Jesus Christ. And to Christ’s Vicar, St. Peter, whose successor chose Christopher Coyne to shepherd our portion of the Body of Christ at this moment in time.

We owe Christopher Coyne our obedience. What’s more, we owe him our filial affection. For that is what the Archbishop of Hartford is: our father in faith.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am aware of the many crises within the Church. I am not trying to gaslight anyone.

The lay faithful have the right—indeed, the duty—to address such matters. Even if it means publicly challenging our own shepherds.

It is the way we have often gone about it that concerns me. We do not address these men as if they are our own fathers. Instead, we publicly rip them, our own spiritual fathers, to pieces.

If they have been abusive fathers—either directly or by enabling the abuse of others under their authority—I get it. But the episcopal targets of our own rhetorical abuse far exceed just those cases. This is true of both the Catholic Left and the Catholic Right.

The Attacks on Archbishop Cronin

Consider an example from the history of our own Archdiocese. In 1992, Pope St. John Paul II appointed Daniel Cronin to be the Archbishop of Hartford. For the first several years, local activists ripped him to pieces.

They tore into him for wanting to buy a large home. They ripped him for asserting control over the Archdiocesan newspaper. They protested him for not allowing a Catholic homeless shelter in a commercial district in downtown Hartford. They fought him for ending radical experiments in parish governance such as having lay people as co-pastors.

The polemics against Cronin were all over the local media. Groups of laypeople signed their names to advertisements in The Hartford Courant to denounce him. An alternative Catholic newspaper was founded to provide regular criticism of him. A bookstore/coffeehouse was established in Hartford where Catholic refugees of Cronin’s alleged repression could gather.

The issues that so exercised the lay activists of that era were never really the issue. The real issue was power. Cronin was a conservative. The lay activists of thirty years ago were liberals. By ending some of the experimental lay governance of previous decades, Cronin was threatening their power.

Their response was to smack him around, drag his name through the mud, and show him who’s boss. Cronin stood his ground. After that, the highwater mark of liberal lay influence in the Archdiocese of Hartford faded.

Don’t Be Like Those Guys

Today, the shoe is on the other foot. Pope Francis and the “Team Francis” Bishops—such as Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne—are the liberals. The most outspoken lay activists, particularly online, are the conservatives.

The motivations of today’s conservative lay critics in the Archdiocese of Hartford are different than the liberal lay critics of the early 1990s. No one is trying to reclaim a power within the institutional Church that they never had in the first place.

But there are ways in which, for today’s conservative lay critic too, the issue is not necessarily the issue. Particularly in the age of social media, there is something…performative…about our criticism.

Make no mistake. I am on the Catholic Right myself, as these things are generally understood. I want our shepherds to have the clarity of a John Paul II or a Benedict XVI, just like you do.

What I don’t want, in our dismay over the state of the Church, is for us to be like those guys. Archbishop Cronin’s liberal lay tormentors of thirty years ago. What I don’t want, is for us to make it all about us.

The way this works is, you see some outrage within the Church, something that offends faith or morals, and you use your platforms to register your indignation. But before long it’s not really about the offensive thing. It’s about you.

You want the world to know that you are too good to be tainted by the offensive thing. Others may be cowards and compromisers, the people who are destroying our beloved Church, but your Facebook friends shall know that you are not. It is a form of virtue-signaling for the conservative Catholic. 

Don’t get me wrong. Bad things are happening within the Church. There is a place for the Catholic tabloid media. It was the National Inquirer that broke the real story of John Edwards’ love child a few years after his run for Vice-President. The Catholic tabloids, too, break real news that deserves to be exposed.

The trick is to not make such stories the central fact of your faith. To not be a Catholic in a permanent adversarial state against your own Church. God became Man so that we might become like God, partakers of the divine nature. God did not become Man so that we might become the keyboard warriors of Catholic Facebook.

Give Him a Chance

I had never heard of Christopher Coyne before Sunday night. When I learned that he was to be our Coadjutor Archbishop, and Leonard Blair’s successor, I inquired about him on social media. The reaction I got from others was immediately hostile.

Further information proved the immediate reaction to be overwrought. Christopher Coyne is not Joseph Strickland. But neither is he Robert McElroy.

In his speech yesterday, Coyne began his remarks by offering “Praise and gratitude to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, manifested in the Catholic Church.” He said he had “a steep learning curve” to get know the clergy of the Archdiocese, who are much larger in number than his previous diocese. But he described his Coadjutor Archbishopric as a “propaedeutic,” a period of preparation for the new task of getting to know the people and culture of the Archdiocese of Hartford, and for us to get to know him.

During the Q and A with the press, Coyne said he wants to get to know the seminarians of the Archdiocese and to promote vocations. He said that the Church has much to offer a culture that is divided and hurting. That we can offer reconciliation to the world and within the Church.

Archbishop Blair and Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne ended the press conference by saying the prayer for vocations to the priesthood together.

I thought most of the press conference was perfect. It reminded me of the press conference introducing Leonard Blair a decade ago, which was also very good. For all the reasons I have mentioned above, this man deserves our support.

Give him a chance. Do not attack him in the manner of our social media era. Pray for him and for his successful shepherding of our Archdiocese.

What Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne Really Said

Now having said all that, it pains me to say this next thing. But it must be said.

This is how Hearst CT Media reports Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne’s comments toward the end of the Archdiocese’s press conference:

“Speaking to reporters on Monday, Coyne did not shy away from sensitive topics, even volunteering that he saw no issue with using a transgender person’s preferred pronouns. 

‘I very much follow Pope Francis’ understanding of accompaniment,’ Coyne said. ‘You accept a person as they’re presenting themselves to you at the moment.’”

This is where we get into the sort of thing that has dogged Pope Francis throughout his pontificate. My friend Tom Hoopes wrote a whole book on “What Pope Francis Really Said.”

In the interest of fairness, here is what Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne really said, as transcribed by my wife from the Archdiocese’s video:

“I want to walk with them on their journey toward Christ. I very much follow Pope Francis’ understanding of ‘accompaniment.’ That you accept the person as they are presenting themselves, at that moment. Whatever is going on in their life, you start talking about how God is already blessing them.

“You know when we deal, just for example, when we deal with transgender people and they come and they say, “I’d like to be called by this pronoun, or I’d like to be referred to as this,’ I say to them, it doesn’t cost anything to accept them, and to say, ‘Ok, that I can do that and I can walk with you. Ok, what do you need from me now? What do you want from me? And how can you and I move along this journey and path?’

“Not to stay where we are. Accompaniment does not mean to stay where we are. In the ‘60s jargon, ‘I’m ok, you’re ok.’ I always say, ‘I’m a sinner, you’re a sinner. But that’s ok. We can find a way to move along together. Let’s journey together and grow in God’s love.’ And we accompany each other along that path. Not to a place of perfection, until the next world. But we get there, we strive there.

“So that’s kind of, I hope I answered your question. But that’s kind of where I walk with them along the way, accompanying people. And I encourage the clergy, priests, and everyone else to do the same.”

Our Pope Francis Archbishop

Fair-minded observers of the Francis pontificate should be getting a sense of déjà vu right about now. Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne has perfectly nailed Pope Francis’ way of speaking, with all that entails. Here’s how.

It is theologically orthodox. Read it closely. Coyne does not support gender ideology. Rather, he prioritizes pastoral care. But with the goal of getting a person to where that person should be.

It will be inadequately reported by the press. Hearst Media is not going to give its readers the full context of Coyne’s remarks. And why should they? Hartford’s next Archbishop did say he would use a person’s preferred pronouns. That’s the man-bites-dog story.

It will be misunderstood by both the Left and the Right. They will only hear about it in the press or on social media. Conservatives will lament that a dissenter is our next Archbishop. Liberals will celebrate it. They are both wrong.

It is imprecise language that leaves you guessing. False hopes have been raised that the Church will change her teachings. Liberals will be even more embittered when those changes do not occur. Conservatives will be even more suspicious because of the lack of clarity.

That said, the Pope Francis approach has its strengths too. Given the enormous harm of the clergy sex-abuse scandals, there are worse trials the Church could be facing right now than to have a Pope, and a Coadjutor Archbishop, who can speak a gentle word to the pain so many experience in our world today.

Accompaniment is wise counsel. I agree with avoiding offense whenever possible. I can understand using the person’s preferred name and avoiding pronouns altogether.

Addressing Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne Directly

But with due respect to your sacred office, Coadjutor Archbishop Coyne, I will not be using false pronouns to describe anyone. No one should do that. You should not do that.

First, you made no qualifications. What about children? Shall I call a child by their "preferred pronouns"? Is that really the helpful thing to do? Or does it, rather, encourage a vulnerable young person in his or her gender dysphoria?   

Second, what about people who "present" as a man but prefer "she/her" pronouns? You laid a unilateral, unqualified recommendation on all of us at your first press conference. This does not take into consideration the varied circumstances and feelings that many have on transgenderism, on parental rights, on Gen. 1:27, on dysphoria, on gender confusion, on Matthew 5:37 and many other matters.

Even matters of LGB erasure. That is, people who identify as gay or lesbian who believe the transing of kids in our public schools is an attack on the same-sex attracted. They believe that, had the trans agenda been in the schools when they were young, they would have been unduly influenced to change their gender, rather than be accepted as a person who is same-sex attracted. The use of false pronouns for others does not make them feel accompanied. It makes them feel erased.

Third, to unilaterally recommend, as an Archbishop (which is very powerful), that “priests and everyone” use only preferred pronouns, on demand, is an overreach. It is a form of clericalism. It does not accompany those who—precisely because of their Catholic faith—resist, or are oppressed by, these agendas.

Fourth, it is bearing false witness. It is a recommendation that we lie. That, for the sake of comity or accompaniment, we pretend to be true something that we know is not true.

Fifth, it could exacerbate the vocations crisis in the Archdiocese of Hartford. A young man with a calling to the priesthood may prefer a diocese that makes no compromise with gender ideology, however well-meaning.

Trust in the Lord

Like you and Archbishop Blair at the close of your press conference, I say the prayer for priestly vocations to our Archdiocese whenever I can. Were my own son to become a priest of the Archdiocese, I would consider it a great honor. A giving back to the local church that has done so much to spiritually feed my family and me all our lives.

And that is where I wish to end this long reflection on your press conference. On what is most important.

Ten years ago, Archbishop Blair began his first press conference with the words "Praise be Jesus Christ." He returned repeatedly to discerning what Christ wants of the Church in Hartford. You did likewise in your press conference yesterday, with your invocation of the Trinity and your motto, to Trust in the Lord.  

In his first appearance a decade ago, Blair also entrusted his own Archbishopric "to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who always leads us to her Son." He asked that we pray for him, "especially the rosary."

In the ten years since, I have ended every rosary with three extra prayers for Archbishop Blair and his intentions. Beginning today and in the years to come, I will be doing the same for you.

It is the Virgin Mary, the Morning Star, whose intercession I will seek for the success of your Archbishopric. May she “who always leads us to her Son” guide your leadership of our Archdiocese. May her gentle hand also guide those of us in your care, that we may always speak the truth in love.