A bishop for 25 years and counting

Interview by Margaret M. Russell | CFP

Twenty-five years ago Msgr. Robert J. McManus had to shoo away a young seminarian from his office in Our Lady of Providence Seminary and rush over to the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul to meet with Bishop Robert E. Mulvey, the bishop of Providence. He had been summoned by the bishop but didn’t know why.

Bishop McManus tells the story of what happened when he learned of his appointment by Pope John Paul II as if it was yesterday.

BISHOP: I was the rector of the seminary of Our Lady of Providence, a college seminary pre-theology program, so I remember distinctly, it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving of 1998. 

I was sitting in my office talking to a young seminarian ... Chris Mahar was at the desk, and I was talking to him, it was after Mass, after breakfast.  

I was sitting at the desk and the phone rang.

I said, “Seminary of Our Lady of Providence.”

And I heard a voice say, “Is this the rector?”  

It was Bishop Mulvey, the bishop of Providence.

I said, “Yes, it is.”

He said, “What are you doing?”

I said, “I’m talking to one of the seminarians.”

He said to me, “Well, get rid of him!”

So, I put my hand over the phone and said, “Chris, we’ll continue this conversation tonight after evening prayer.”

I said, “Yes, Your Excellency?”

He said, “Listen I have a couple of serious questions I want to talk to you about, could you come down to the cathedral right now?”

So, I drove down to the cathedral ...

It was a blustery, nasty November day. I quickly walk over to the rectory and Bishop Mulvey is standing at the door. He opens the door and says, “come on in.” He takes my coat and says, “let’s go into the chapel and say a prayer.”

We go into this little side room, and he is standing over me and almost pushes me into the chair. I said to myself “what the heck is going on here?”  

He says, “I received a phone call this morning. (He had asked to receive an auxiliary bishop. Everyone in the diocese knew that.)

He said, “I just received a phone call from the nuncio.” (Archbishop [Agostino] Cacciavillan - who soon after my appointment went back to Rome to serve the Curia, and became a cardinal.)   

He said, “The Holy Father [Pope John Paul II] has it in mind to name you the auxiliary bishop of Providence. Do you accept?”  

And I looked at him and said, “What did you say?”

He said, “The Holy Father wants you to be the auxiliary bishop of Providence. Do you accept?”

I said, “Well, I’m going to be working with you, what do you think?”

He said, “For God’s sake say yes!”

So, I said yes.  

But then I had to get on the phone to the nuncio and tell him “viva voce” that I was very thankful to the Holy Father, and I had accepted his invitation to be ordained the auxiliary of Providence. So, he said, “very good, very good.” He was a man of very few words.

Then he said, “Write a letter of acceptance in your own handwriting and send it to the Holy Father and then I’ll call you back later on and we’ll decide on a date of the consecration.”

A little later on, I go to my office. Then Bishop Mulvey says to me the nuncio is on the phone and wants to speak with you.  

“Yes, your excellency? This is Msgr. McManus.”

He said, “Oh, I forgot to mention to you, that the Holy Father is inviting you to Rome to be consecrated by him in St. Peter’s Basilica.”  

(That was the custom under John Paul II. On the feast of the Epiphany, he would call a number of men to Rome, who had been appointed bishop, to consecrate them.)

I paused and said, “Well, Your Excellency, my father is very sick. (My father had all types of cardiac problems.) I don’t think my father and mother and my family could travel to Rome.”  

Dead silence.

He said, “Well you better go to Rome and explain in person to the Holy Father why you cannot accept the invitation.”

EXPLAINING TO POPE JOHN PAUL II

So, one of my classmates (he is now deceased) and I went over to Rome to explain.

I had the privilege of concelebrating Mass in the pope’s private chapel. He used to call in lay people, groups of lay people. It was just the Holy Father and myself. So, I concelebrate Mass and was standing on the side making my thanksgiving.  

Then Msgr. [Stanislaw] Dziwisz, (later Cardinal Dziwisz who went back to Poland to be cardinal there) taps me on the shoulder. He said, “The Holy Father wants you to go to the altar and join him in giving the final blessing.”  

...  Afterwards I went into the room to take off my vestments and then I went into the salone – a big public room where the Holy Father receives all the people who were at Mass.  

I was at the head of the line. I was a monsignor, so I had my monsignor cassock on, red sash, and had the zucchetto, the red zucchetto that the bishop had given to me the day after he gave me the news. (Bishop Mulvey came to the seminary to celebrate daily Mass at 7 o’clock. During the Mass he had put the zucchetto on my head.)  

So, I am standing there, and the Holy Father comes in – he was on the cane at that point – so all the photographers were there. So, he hands the cane off to Msgr. Dziwisz, he comes up to me and says, “I am going to be ordaining you a bishop in a couple of weeks.”

I said, “No, Holy Father.”

He looked at me and said, “What did you say?”

I said, “No.”  

And he said, “Well, why not?”

I said, “Because my father is very sick and they couldn’t travel.” (Here Bishop McManus pauses his story in remembrance of his father.)

And then he says to me, “Oh your mother and father are living? No, no, you stay with them and be consecrated in your home diocese.”

Then he starts with his finger hitting my chest. He says, “Where is your pectoral cross?”

I said, “Well, I don’t have one.”

And he said, “I have a gift for you.”

So, Msgr. Dziwisz has this beautiful red case, he opens it, and the Holy Father takes the pectoral cross, puts it over my head, slaps me on the face and says, “Be a good bishop.”  

I was like having an out-of-body experience.

He went around the room and all the photographers are ushered off and he has his cane and he’s saying to me in Italian, “coraggio, coraggio,” be strong, be strong – and off he goes.

He was so fatherly.  

ORDAINED IN HIS HOME DIOCESE

Finally, when the nuncio and I had a conversation, I chose Feb. 22 because that is the feast of the Chair of St. Peter. So that was an appropriate time to be ordained a bishop.

I remember the day well, priest friends of mine from all over the country – I studied with them in Rome and Toronto – came to the celebration and a lot of them stayed at the seminary with me. It was Feb. 22, a beautiful, sunny, winter day but absolutely freezing. We had a wonderful, magnificent celebration and the cathedral was jammed, absolutely jammed ... It was just a glorious celebration.  

Then we had a public reception and then a private dinner for my family and my priest guests. ... It was quite a memorable day, it was exhausting.

A VERY DIFFERENT CHURCH OVER 25 YEARS

Over the past 25 years bishops in the United States and around the world have experienced a smaller and very different Church. The faithful left in droves in response to the sexual abuse crisis that was revealed in January 2002. And then, less than 20 years later, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. But the change in the culture has played a role as well.  

Bishop McManus said that a priest recently told him that “the drop in Mass attendance has been catastrophic – people have not returned.” They speculated that the diminution of the Church “would have evolved in the course of about 10 years because the culture is so secularized.” But the pandemic accelerated things. And what might have happened in 10 years, happened in two years.  

“Many of our Catholic people who attended Mass, I don’t think they really understood, in any profound way, the mystery which they had the privilege to participate in ... I just don’t think they had a really deep understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist and what a privilege it was to be there. Because it’s only in the Eucharist that we find the strength for the journey,” he said.

With regard to the bishops acquiescing to the government’s demand to close the churches, Bishop McManus said, “Our response was too precipitous; we should have pushed back. But I think there was such a feeling of uncertainty and people did not know what was going on and people were dying in droves. It was just a horrendous experience.

“I remember the first Sunday churches were closed, I celebrated Mass in the cathedral with 10 people, most of them altar servers and lay ministers, it was the most bizarre experience of my life.”

Does he regret saying “yes” to Pope John Paul II’s invitation to become a bishop? “Not really,” he answered.

I approach it this way. I never asked to be a bishop. I certainly did not do anything to try to promote myself. I just tried to be a good priest in the Diocese of Providence. And I will say that the happiest six years of my priesthood was when I was rector of the seminary; five of which I was the bishop. That is when, in 2002, the crisis broke out. And I was just so edified by these young men who, in the midst of this chaos … said to me, if there are some priests who got us into this mess, we’d like to be a priest who helps heal the Church. It was very, very powerful.  

So, my point is this, I am a big believer in two things: purgatory and divine providence. I believe that, for some reason in God’s providence, that he chose me to be a bishop of the Church. Obviously there have been ups and downs, a lot of challenges – many joys – but a lot of challenges. I just believe that this is where I’m supposed to work out my salvation.

When the crisis broke out in January 2002, that really radically changed the life of every bishop in the United States and subsequently the world. It was just a horrendous shock with these horrendous details coming forward.  

I remember going to Dallas in June of 2002, it was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. A group of victims addressed the bishops and the anger and the hurt was palpable. To sit there and listen to this ... And then outside the hotel in downtown Dallas was a group of evangelicals with the most vulgar signs, and screaming anti-Catholic things, it was just horrible, horrible, horrible.  

We committed ourselves to the Dallas Charter, zero tolerance, then we had to go back to our dioceses to begin the process of healing. And when I came here in 2004, the pain and the hurt and the anger was still palpable. It’s like a nightmare from which you cannot wake up.

It was a terrible time.  

And also, the thing that weighed heavy on my mind was the Catholic faithful. I mean these people were absolutely shocked and angry – rightly so – and they wanted some type of reparation for this.    

I think one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a bishop is to sit in a conference room with a survivor and listen to their stories. What can you say? You apologize in the name of the Church, and you pledge that you will help them in any way that you can. But it’s just been a horrific, horrific, horrific experience.

It’s sort of common knowledge, or at least the story on the street, that a lot of priests who are being called by the nuncio to accept the invitation of the Holy Father to be ordained a bishop are turning it down.  

You’re asked as a bishop to address things that happened in the past, and sometimes in the distant past. You did not commit the offense, you did not protect people who did these horrible things, but you’re on the hotseat. And it’s very, very emotionally and spiritually very trying.  

 I’m convinced that you have to be a man of prayer rooted in the Eucharist. As priests, that’s where we find our identity. That’s the reason why we get out of bed every morning. That’s the reason why we try to serve Christ and the Gospel of the Church. And if I didn’t have that, you couldn’t do it. You would psychologically collapse.  

Also, I think what’s very important, especially as a diocesan bishop, is to surround yourself with priests and lay faithful, who are people of faith, who love Christ and the Church, and who will help you to promote life in the Church in a way that is attractive and understandable.

I’ll be ordained 46 years a priest this May 27, and the Church in which I am serving now is not the Church into which I was ordained. In my first parish there were four priests in the rectory, 16 Sisters of Mercy in the school, pre-K to eight, double grades, six Masses in a church that holds 600 people, every Mass was packed. And now, the sexual abuse scandal left a tremendous hole in the Church. And the second punch was the pandemic. We are a weakened Church, there is no doubt.

IN CHALLENGING TIMES, THE CHURCH EXISTS TO EVANGELIZE

I think that we have to go back to what St. Paul VI said in “Evangelium Nuntiandi,” that the Church exists for one reason, to evangelize. I think we have to recommit ourselves to going back to re-founding the Church, evangelizing, inviting people back.  

The Church does not belong to the bishops or the priests or anybody. The Church belongs to Christ. The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. So, we will get through all this. I’m completely convinced [that the Church is in the midst of] a purifying phenomenon. The Church needed to be purified in its leadership and its priests. So now, with the help of the Holy Spirit and God’s grace, we have to commit ourselves energetically and joyfully. Knowing, at the end of the day the victory is won, and Christ’s Church will last to the end of time.  
It’s a very challenging time in the life of the Church.  

SIGNS OF HOPE

I will say that I am also encouraged by our young priests, and I’m encouraged, generally, by seminary formation. When I was in seminary, seminary formation was a complete and total disaster. There was very little formation going on actually. It was a type of formation free-for-all. Thanks again to St. John Paul II’s “Pastores Dabo Vobis,” his post-synodal exhortation on seminary life, that the seminaries are much, much better today than they were in my lifetime. I’m very encouraged by that.  

Last November after our bishops’ meeting, I went to where we have six or seven seminarians, St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, [Maryland] ... and it’s a wonderful, wonderful place for a bishop to send his seminarians.

But I am also very edified, and very happy, at our confirmation celebrations, to see the parents so delighted that their children have been confirmed. Obviously, there is a nucleus of very committed Catholic families. I think that we have to pay attention to them and not worry about people who seem to be indifferent to what we are doing.  

It’s these Catholic families that will provide the ambiance - or the culture of their homes - where faith can be instructed, it can be developed, it can be nourished.   

The Church says very clearly that the parents are the first and the primary instructors of their children in the ways of the faith. They are their primary religious educators. I don’t think we have taken that seriously enough. And the sad thing is a lot of our Catholic parents ... don’t know much about the faith. So, I think, they feel somewhat incompetent when they try to instruct their children. But the best instruction they can give is every Sunday the family going to church together. That’s key.

There are signs of hope all over the place. Here in the diocese, there are Catholic schools that are very committed to being thoroughly Catholic. There are Catholic families that enjoy the company of other families. There is very strong Catholic homeschooling going on. All are producing vocations. So, there are signs of hope. We just have to pray that with all hands to the plow we do the evangelizing that Christ wants us to do for his Church.

We cannot underestimate [the fact] that we live in a society that is openly hostile to the Church, particularly to the Church’s sexual teaching, and on what it means to be a human person. The hostility is intense. Even in some Catholic institutions. Because they have, in a sense, identified what it means to be Catholic with these cultural trends, such a “woke-ism,” a type of, as George Weigel calls it, “Catholicism Lite.” There’s so much of that being propagated.

I think that every bishop in the world has to realize that in his diocese he is the vicar of Christ, he’s not a branch manager [with] the pope as the CEO of the universal church. His ministry is to pass on integrally, not in a diluted fashion, the teachings of the Church that are received, the gift of divine revelation, the gift of the natural moral law, the gift of the received magisterial teachings, the life of the Church that we have been handed on in our Catholic tradition [and all] the elements, both spiritual and theological, and moral, that will help rebuild the Church. I think that’s what all of us bishops have to keep our eye on.

CULTURE AND TRUTH

The reality is that when [Pope] Benedict [XVI] celebrated the funeral Mass for [Pope] St. John Paul II and he talked about the Western culture and beyond being subject to the tyranny of moral relativism, he thought that [by] saying that he was assuring that he would not be elected. But, in point of fact, I think that it was that theological claim that the cardinals could see was absolutely true. And this moral relativism and intellectual relativism has infected every dimension of our society. [We can see] the irony that Harvard’s motto is “Veritas,” and at least one of the recent presidents said at the inauguration that her job, as president of a contemporary public university such as Harvard, was to deconstruct the idea of objective truth.  And that, in academe, to hold on to the intellectual objectivity of truth and moral truth is completely out of fashion. Unfortunately, I think some of our young people in higher education are being exposed to this. It is not education, it is indoctrination.  

HOW DOES ONE CULTIVATE AN ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST?

I think often of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman. His famous statement is that he read himself into Catholicism. He was a scholar.

He read the Scriptures, he read the Fathers of the Church, the Latin fathers, the Greek fathers, he read St. Thomas Aquinas and the great theologians, and he became convinced of the truth of the Roman Catholic Church.  

In our day, for young people who are discerning a vocation, in any part of life, they would want to live a way that is authentically Catholic.  

Obviously, the best way to encounter Christ is in the Eucharist.

 I am absolutely thunderstruck and delighted that here in the Diocese of Worcester, under Tim Messenger [director of the office for youth ministry], Tim does not have any celebration or meetings with the young people unless there is the opportunity for confession and eucharistic adoration.

When I was ordained, if a young priest said that his CYO group is attending adoration and confession, people would look at him and say, “what is the matter with you?”  

Obviously, Sunday attendance of Mass, Mass during the week, if possible, eucharistic adoration [are important] and, as I said, [follow the example of] Cardinal Newman [who] read himself into the truth of the faith.

I think every young Catholic should take it upon himself or herself to study the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.” That is a compendium of the faith of the Church and is written in a very accessible way. And for our young people, that is one way to read themself into the truth of the faith. There is no replacement for good Catholic friends who have a vision of life and of the Church that they share with others.

WHO INFLUENCED HIS JOURNEY?

I’ve told this story before, I was taught by the Faithful Companions of Jesus at Blessed Sacrament School for grades 1-8, and the nuns were the best vocations directors that the Church ever had. Most of the nuns were Irish born. (This is the same order that swept into St. Joseph in Fitchburg and in Gilbertville, at St. Aloysius.)  

Most of us were altar boys. There were 50 of us in our eighth-grade class – there were two classes. So, Mother Ethna, who was the eighth-grade teacher, direct from Ireland, she said to all of the girls, go out to recess and the boys have to stay here. We said, “uh oh.”

She said, “I just want you to know some of you planning to take the exam in a couple weeks to apply for the seminary, remember this ...

“Becoming a priest is not only a good thing you can do with your life; it is the best thing.”   

I was 13 years old; I believed her then and I believe it now.

Thirteen of us from the eighth grade from Blessed Sacrament School went to the minor seminary. We had 125 in our freshman class.

I am also blessed with an excellent education. I went to seminary college in Warwick [Our Lady of Providence] for two years, and then, I won a scholarship to do my BA and MA in philosophy at Theological College and Seminary in Washington, D.C. Then I went to Toronto [Toronto School of Theology] to study my theology. Then after six years of priesthood, I went to Rome [The Pontifical Gregorian University] to get my doctorate in moral theology. Along the way, I have had great professors who really influenced my intellectual life and my spiritual life. My intellectual formation in the seminary has been a blessing, a tremendous blessing.

SURROUNDED BY WONDERFUL CATHOLICS

One of the greatest privileges of a bishop is to meet such wonderful Catholics, many of whom are far, far holier than I am. So, it’s very edifying, very, very edifying [seeing] the love that they have for the Church and their priests. The turnout we have for Celebrate Priesthood [the diocesan fundraiser for retired priests] is amazing, it grows every year. I think this is a very concrete sign of the Catholic faithful wanting to celebrate the priesthood as this precious gift that Christ has given to his Church.

We see clearly in Partners in Charity [the diocesan annual appeal, formerly the Bishop’s Fund] the number of people who support it has fallen significantly, but the people who have stayed with us, the [average] gift is bigger than it ever was before. Those who have stayed with us realize the many challenges we have, one of which is financial, and they are really stepping up to the plate.  

For us to have raised $32 million [through the Legacy of Hope capital campaign] in the depths of the pandemic, that speaks volumes.

I come from a very close family, and I have a lot of good priest friends both in the Diocese of Providence and here so that’s a great source of support.  

It’s been a great life. I could never have done it without so many good people, co-workers with me. That’s the key.