BROOKLYN, NY October 02, 2003 — On Friday, Roman Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens will have a new leader. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will replace retiring bishop Thomas Daily, in a solemn ceremony in Bay Ridge. WNYC's Amy Eddings has this report on the challenges he faces in the country's fifth-largest diocese.

Bishop DiMarzio, at farewell Mass: The Lord Be With You.

People: And also with you

When asked about the type of bishop Nicholas DiMarzio was during his four years in the Diocese of Camden, priests and parishioners alike mention his accessibility, and his energy. The bishop's second-in-command, Monsignor James Tracy, told a packed church at a farewell mass that DiMarzio's schedule made him tired just to look at it.

Tracy: You traveled to end to end of the diocese. You were in the fields saying Mass. You were in the prisons. You were in every church, twice, most times, three or four times, wanting to be with the people.



Trained as a social worker, DiMarzio is best known for his outreach to immigrants. And in south Jersey, Georgeanne Julia remembers a Mass he held for migrant workers in a blueberry field.

Julia: They had like, tents and everything, but it was a rural mass, like something you'd see in a book. He just got in there like it was an everyday thing, it was great!

DiMarzio: I grew up in an immigrant family. My grandparents were all immigrants. My parents were born here, I understood what the immigrant experience was about as a third generation descendant. Nobody's told why they're given a particular diocese, but logically, it seems that that could be one of the skills that fit the need here.

Bishop DiMarzio is a self-avowed workaholic - a trait that may come in handy in his new diocese, which encompasses Brooklyn and Queens. There are four times the number of Catholics here than in Camden. Sixty percent are foreign-born. Monsignor Otto Garcia, the vicar general of the diocese, says this creates outreach challenges to both the migrant workers, and the families they've left behind.

Garcia: Being alone in a country opens you to a lot of temptations, difficulties, and from a pastoral point of view, we have to support these people in that context.

But not enough men are entering the priesthood to meet these growing needs. To diocesan officials, the influx of immigrants, and the shortage of priests, are the biggest, most tangible issues facing the new bishop. But to the wider public, Bishop DiMarzio will need to restore faith in a church leadership that has been marred by the child sexual abuse scandal. Retiring Bishop Thomas Daily had a high-level position in Boston in the 1980s; church documents have shown he did not investigate allegations of sexually abusive priests, and he assigned troubled priests to new parishes. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and editor of the Catholic magazine, America, says Bishop DiMarzio will be able to deal with any lawsuits in a fresh way.

Reese: Clearly, among the victims, anybody who was connected with Boston could not be trusted. So I think there was the feeling that the victims really had concerns about Bishop Daily, and now that he is gone, I think it should be much easier for Bishop DiMarzio to talk to the victims, to deal with them in a pastoral way.

But Mark Serrano, a New Jersey member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, doesn't think Bishop DiMarzio is the man for the job.

Serrano: Bishop DiMarzio's legal proceedings against victims left them black, blue and bleeding in the courtroom.

Bishop DiMarzio recently settled a 1994 lawsuit against the Camden diocese, paying out $880-thousand dollars to 23 plaintiffs. In court, plaintiffs were asked intimate questions about their abuse, causing one judge to comment that the church's legal approach was at odds with its stance as a moral force in society. Bishop DiMarzio:

DiMarzio: Do I regret how it was handled? I regret that people felt hurt in any way, I do regret that. As a person, as a social worker, as a bishop. Unfortunately, when you take to the courts, you have to go with the court system. And that's where we're at.

For the most part, DiMarzio has been praised for his handling of the sexual abuse crisis. He set up a victims' support group, and a toll-free number for victims. He doesn't know yet whether he'll make any changes to the way allegations are handled in Brooklyn. DiMarzio is also taking a wait-and-see attitude on Voice of the Faithful, the group that started as a result of the scandal. DiMarzio banned VOTF from meeting on church property in Camden. A similar ban by Brooklyn Bishop Daily was lifted after church officials met with members.

At a reception after the farewell mass, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio's oft-mentioned energy was in high gear, as he greeted dozens of well-wishers.

Man: I barely get to know you -

Bishop: Then I leave.

Man: -- and then you run away. I hope it's nothing I said.

Bishop: No! No, I can't keep a job, that's the trouble.

His new diocese is likely to take all the energy and skills he can offer. For WNYC, I'm Amy Eddings.