At age 77 Cardinal Blase Cupich is still on the move every day and on the job, but even with the “HELP WANTED” sign figuratively posted at Holy Name, there is no official time frame for the Vatican to hire a new archbishop or a list of front runners to replace Cupich-who’s been in charge for almost 12 years.
The cardinal himself tells NBC Chicago that he plans to remain until Pope Leo accepts his resignation, which he submitted as required at age 75.
“It’s hard to know, you know,” Cardinal Cupich said in an interview with NBC Chicago. “I sent in my resignation two years ago. I think they lost the letter.”
In his first year, the pope has appointed nearly 300 new bishops across the globe, less than 10% of the church worldwide leadership. Of those, 12 bishop appointments have been made here in the U.S…including his fellow Chicagoan Ron Hicks, a protégé of Cardinal Cupich.
Hicks was transferred by the new pope in December from bishop of Joliet to the top Catholic church position in New York City. That is considered Pope Leo’s most significant appointment so far in the United States.
“Absolutely…if you look at the kind of coaching chart for bishops for all the wonky people out there, Cardinal Cupich’s coaching chart is very full,” said Loyola University’s Michael Murphy, director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. “There are four archbishops out of his former deputies. Omaha and Milwaukee and Cincinnati and now the big one, New York,” said Murphy.
Cardinal Cupich is two years past mandatory retirement, and Ron Hicks was considered a frontrunner for his mentor’s position. When Cupich’s long-pending resignation is accepted, his successor is likely to become Pope Leo’s biggest U.S. appointment.
“It’s entirely probable that Cardinal Cupich will have some input about that,” said Steven Millies, a top theology professor at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. “It’s quite probable, at least that to the degree that Cardinal Cupich aligns with Pope Leo on almost everything, that Chicago will certainly get someone I would expect very much like Cardinal Cupich.”
“I’ve decided that I’m just going to run the race until the end and do all that I can,” Cardinal Cupich said. “There are some things I would like to finish up to hand over to my successor, a healthy diocese. So, I’ll take a day at a time,” said a light-hearted Cardinal Cupich in an interview with NBC Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern as the cardinal weighs when Pope Leo will actually accept his resignation as archbishop of Chicago.
“I would note that last year he appointed me to a new position in Rome that takes me over there for other meetings and it’s a five-year term. So, I wonder how good their math is over there,” Cupich quipped.
Some archbishops have managed to stay on for years after reaching retirement age even with the “help wanted sign up.” A few have worked into their 80’s.
One important Catholic consideration is that Cupich and other cardinals do not get a vote for pope once they reach age 80.
We will hear much more from Cardinal Cupich on the occasion of Pope Leo’s one year anniversary on Friday, May 8 at 6:30pm when Mary Ann Ahern, Chuck Goudie and the NBC 5 news team present a special, in-depth, half-hour report “Pope Leo-The First Year.”
