c. 2000 Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. _ Just this summer, the archbishop of Newark was finally starting to relax.

Not that Theodore McCarrick, a self-confessed workaholic, ever slows down. But in July he had marked his 70th birthday, and in May another prelate had been chosen as archbishop in New York.

That effectively put an end to the speculation that McCarrick was in line for the nation’s most prominent pulpit, or another high church post.

“No matter what the truth is, there will always be rumors,” McCarrick said Tuesday. “When I turned 70, I was so happy, I thought: `Now I’m too old, I’m done with all that.”’

As it turned out, McCarrick’s respite was short-lived. Two weeks ago, the pope’s envoy to the United States gave McCarrick the news: “The Holy Father wants you to be the new archbishop of Washington.”

And so it was that on Tuesday (Nov. 21), after official word came out from the Vatican, McCarrick battled his emotions and tried to explain the feeling of leaving the Archdiocese of Newark after 14 years. At an age when most men are retired, he is moving to a post that will certainly give him even greater prominence, as well as an expected elevation to cardinal and a voice in the next conclave to elect a pope.

“When I first heard it, I said yes. I always say yes, I never say no,” McCarrick said Tuesday afternoon at a packed news conference in Newark after returning from an equally crowded morning news conference, where he was introduced to the Washington media. “Then the next hour I started to think, `What did I say yes to?”’

“Life is bittersweet,” said the New York native who was first appointed a bishop in 1981 to head the newly formed Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., where he served until coming to Newark in 1986.

“Certainly it’s an exciting challenge to be asked by the Holy Father to go to the nation’s capital. But it’s also a pull away from the roots that I sunk in 20 years ago in New Jersey.”

“But life is like that.”

Not every life, and certainly not McCarrick’s.

Born in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, McCarrick was raised in a traditional Irish-Catholic atmosphere, an only son whose father, a merchant sea captain, died of tuberculosis when Teddy McCarrick was just 3.

McCarrick attended Catholic schools, and Fordham University, and he was eventually ordained by New York’s Cardinal Francis Spellman, known as the “American Pope.”

McCarrick then became the personal secretary to Spellman’s successor, Cardinal Terence Cooke, before beginning his own career as a bishop with the Metuchen assignment.

A politically savvy, pastorally sensitive churchman with a knack for fund raising and close ties to the pope, McCarrick seemed destined for high church office.

However, the Newark Archdiocese, which suffers the same indignities in the church world as the state of New Jersey does in American culture, seemed to be the end of the line in his career.

That would have been fine with McCarrick, as well as many of the 1.3 million Catholics in the Newark Archdiocese, the seventh-largest diocese in the country. During his time here, McCarrick was largely responsible for putting Newark on the map, and not only in the church world.

In an era when many bishops move their own residences out of the inner cities to the suburbs, McCarrick made a point of living in the cathedral rectory in the city’s tough North Ward. (A few years ago, thieves stole the archbishop’s car.)

He pushed to keep Catholic hospitals in the area open and funded to serve poor residents and immigrants, and he opted to build Seton Hall Law School in the city rather than moving it to a site in Roseland.

In 1996 he built a $13 million archdiocesan center _ essentially the headquarters for New Jersey Catholics _ next to the cathedral, a powerful statement of his commitment to the city.

(OPTIONAL TRIM BEGINS)

“During his tenure, the archdiocese redoubled its commitment to Newark, and in doing so, became a major force in this city’s revival,” said Newark Mayor Sharpe James, who worked closely with McCarrick.

But McCarrick also took pains to visit the far-flung suburbs of his four-county, 240-parish archdiocese, often saying Mass in several churches each Sunday.

“Being a presence, I believe, is so important,” McCarrick said in a June interview. “That’s why I kill myself on weekends going to four or five parishes. You have to let the people see you, let them know you love them.”

But McCarrick’s duties to the Vatican _ some say fueled by ambition _ often took him away from New Jersey for long stretches. That caused some grumbling among local priests, although most enjoyed the freedom that allowed them.

Moreover, McCarrick’s high profile within the international church and at the Vatican brought many benefits to his Jersey flock. For one thing, his ties to John Paul II enabled him to arrange for the first-ever papal visit to New Jersey, in 1995.

(OPTIONAL TRIM ENDS)

In addition, he was able to recruit seminarians and priests from other countries to serve here during a time when local U.S. vocations have been declining precipitously. In fact, McCarrick’s record as the American leader in ordaining priests _ 171 in 14 years _ was boosted by the numbers of foreign-born priests he has brought in. He even set up a separate seminary, Redemptoris Mater, to educate these men, many of whom would then work at the various ethnic-language parishes in the state.

McCarrick’s influence and efficacy was also due to his renowned talent as a fund raiser _ “a role,” McCarrick said Tuesday with a grin, “which I never have been able to escape in the 42 years of my priestly ministry.”

Whatever his larger responsibilities, McCarrick continued to toil away at his job as head of the Newark Archdiocese, putting in hours that would leave much younger aides glassy-eyed with fatigue.

“I am still a workaholic and thank God I am strong enough to keep working hard,” the archbishop told the Washington press corps Tuesday morning.

KRE END GIBSON