Theodore McCarrick did not want to be known as a father. He encouraged young men and boys to call him “uncle”, and called them his nephews in turn. He wrote them letters signed Uncle Ted or Uncle T. According to the Vatican journalist Rocco Palmo, he wasin fact “known to everyone from reporters to donors to his aides as ‘Uncle Ted.'” Every year he hosted an Uncle's Day party.
The Catholic custom is to address priests as fathers. Every cleric, from the parish priest to the successor of St Peter, is in some sense recognised as pope, papa, father. This paternalistic language reminds us that the priest gains his authority from, and remains accountable to, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named.”
Read Full Article »