Column

The bishop's chair is empty

By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Apostolic Administrator

We had to read the book our junior year of high school, and it had an impact upon me. It was A Death in the Family by James Agee.

Actually, the cover of the book is what moved me. It was a portrait of a beat-up worn, but comfortable chair.

The novel was about the death of the dad in a family. That old, empty chair was a powerful symbol that the man who usually sat there, smoking his pipe and wearing his slippers, was gone. He had died.

My own dad dropped dead at 51 years of age. The Sunday after his funeral (which happened to be Easter!), our family, as usual, gathered for Sunday dinner. Out of habit, none of us sat in the chair at the table where Dad always had. When we all came together around the supper table, there was not a dry-eye or a throat without a lump, as we all looked at Dad's empty chair.

The Diocese of Green Bay has an empty chair. The Latin for that, used in church vocabulary, is sede vacante.

The bishop's chair, often called by its Greek name, the cathedra (thus, our word, Cathedral, the church which houses the bishop's chair) is now empty.

It's not that we're sad, like the people in James Agee's novel, or like my family that Easter, because the man who sat in that chair, Bishop David Zubik, is very much alive and active. But, he's just not here with us anymore.

We do not have a bishop. The chair is empty.

Thank God we have Bishop Morneau, the auxiliary bishop, and Bishop Banks, our retired one, but, as they would be quick to explain, they are not the bishop. Nor am I. In fact, my title is "apostolic administrator sede vacante," which could roughly be re-worded as "the guy who keeps an eye on things while the chair is empty." (To which I would add, "and hopefully not for too long!")

But it does give us an invitation to reflect on the role of the bishop in a diocese. His presence is so important that, well, we know something essential to the life of the church is missing when we do not have one. When it comes time to pray for him in the Eucharistic prayers, we awkwardly pause, not knowing what to say. Someone is absent.

We miss him. We wait for a new one. We need a new bishop.

He is a father, an elder brother, the visible sign of unity in a diocesan family. By his person, he keeps us connected to Jesus, His Church throughout the world and throughout the ages. He hooks us up with the apostles.

I suppose all we can do is praise God that we are part of the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, exercise the virtue of patience, and pray for those who will counsel the Bishop of Rome and successor of St. Peter, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, on the selection of the next one.

We want to see the sede, that chair, no longer vacante, empty, but plena, full!

Even I can't keep it warm, because I can't sit there. But I sure am grateful to so many who are keeping the life of the diocese steady and effective in this transition period, especially my brothers Bishop Morneau and Bishop Banks, Deacon Timothy Reilly, and Father John Doerfler. They're keeping that chair polished much better than I can!

God's love and blessings to you all!