Archbishop Dolan and Ethnic Challenges in Milwaukee
August 25, 2002

This week we receive Archbishop Timothy Dolan as our leader. This is an exciting time because it is a time of new beginnings, an opportunity to write a new page in the illustrious history of the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. As a local Church we have had these beginnings a number of times over the 150 years we have existed. Some of the leaders we received were known by us and some were not. Some went on to become cardinal archbishops in other dioceses while others stayed among us as our leaders until the Lord called them home. Every one of them was sent by the Lord to be our shepherd as we, the flock, continued on our personal journeys through life.

One of the biggest challenges our shepherds had over the years was the flock they led. The makeup of the flock in this archdiocese changed radically. The greatest changes were wrought by the influx of the various ethnic groups that provided the people necessary to keep the country productive. Looking back we see this in the various waves of immigrants that came to Wisconsin. My ancestors came during the German influx in the mid-1800s. Italians came decades afterwards. The Irish and Polish had their turns over the next 100 years. As each group came, there were arguments as to how best serve them in our archdiocese. Most groups brought their own priests, so language was not always a problem. They did use their language in church as much as they could. I often joked about my grandfather Metz. I remember as a child that he, a second generation American, sinned in English but confessed in German!

We did have some interesting cases along the line. There was a great hue and cry when a person of one nationality was made bishop in Milwaukee when people of other ethnic background thought he should be one of theirs. (I will not identify the ethnic groups involved with that one.) I truly hope that Archbishop Dolan doesn’t get a lot of flak because he is Irish!

What does the Church in our archdiocese look like to the new Archbishop? It certainly does not have the same appearance that greeted Archbishop Cousins in 1958 or Archbishop Weakland in 1978. We have changed a lot! We tend to see ourselves here at St. Mark as relatively stable because of the neighborhood we serve. But, truth be told, we, too, are part of the big changes sweeping our city, our country, the world. Stepping back to get the bigger view can help us understand what is happening.

At the base of what is going on is something that has never happened before. The economist, Peter Drucker, wrote this last year: “In the developed countries, the dominant factor in the next society will be something to which most people are only beginning to pay attention: the rapid growth in the older population and the rapid shrinking of the younger generation.” The question facing our society is this: how can we keep our economy going without the young people to do the work? If we do not replace ourselves at the rate of 2.2 births per woman of reproductive age, we become an unstable economy. The answer to this problem around the world has been a mass influx of workers from other countries.

When I lived in Rome I saw thousands of immigrant au pair girls in the piazzas on their afternoon off. These women came mostly from the Philippines. When I traveled in the Middle East I visited with hundreds of Catholics from India and the Philippines who worked as maids and in construction. I also met many Irish nurses who were hired to work in hospitals. In France, the work force has taken on a decidedly northern African look because of the need for workers brought in from former French colonies. The reaction to this situation in Europe is interesting as well as discouraging. The Pope encouraged Italians to make more babies so that the country would not have to depend on so many foreign workers. The Bavarian premier offered increased money to those families with more children. At its worse, xenophobia has become evident. The Archbishop of Bologna wanted much stricter immigration policies in Italy. His reason? “We have to be concerned about saving the nation.” Cardinal Sodano said that Cardinal Biffi’s words “were wise, very wise indeed.” Since most of the immigrants are not Catholic, the percentage of Catholics in the general population is declining.

In our country we have similar things going on. Our birth rate is declining. To replace workers who are retiring we are importing workers to do the tasks most of us do not want to do. A difference between Europe and us is that the Catholic Church is not declining in our country. A closer look at the reason why ought to give us pause. Catholics still are about 23% of the population in the United States. However, over the last number of years much of the increase in the number of Catholics has occurred among Hispanic communities (6.5 million). This compares to the much smaller increase of non-Hispanic Catholics of 1.5 million.

Our new Archbishop is going to have to confront this change of demographics in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. We have been privileged here at St. Mark to be on the cutting edge of ministry to all portions of our Kenosha community. We are simply carrying out the instruction of the Lord to bring the gospel to all nations, even when the nations are coming to us through immigration. I pray that the Lord give Archbishop Dolan, as well as our parish, the insight and gifts necessary to carry our Christ’s great commission.

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