George Neumayr On The DiNardo Chain Of Paternity

In a recent column, George Neumayr, who pursued Donald Wuerl with some prescience, asks a legitimate question: so, who made Daniel DiNardo, the current president of the USCCB and a leader of the presumptive moderate faction of bishops? The answer is neither very clear nor especially reassuring.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, whose Galveston-Houston chancery was raided this week by prosecutors in search of abuse-related files, always struck me as a pretty haunted and compromised figure. DiNardo came out of Pittsburgh and the corrupt milieu of Cardinal John Wright, who was an accused pederast and a mentor to such slimy prelates as Donald Wuerl. Google DiNardo and Cardinal Wright and a creepy picture comes up of a young DiNardo sitting next to Wright in a white tuxedo. Wright liked to dress his seminarians up in such attire, just as Wuerl would later delight in having his young priests wear waiters’ uniforms and serve appetizers at parties held at his Pittsburgh mansion.

For whatever reason, the Spectator didn't run the picture, but it's on Google, so here it is. DiNardo is seated to the left of Wright. The photo is noted as from the Bishop's Latin School, which DiNardo attended from 1964 to 1967 while Wright was Bishop of Pittsburgh. Neumayr calls Wright "one of the godfathers of a high-living, dilettantish Gay Mafia within the Church", although I think even a godfather had a daddy, and who that might be still isn't clear.

UPDATE: William M. Ogrodowski, standing to the right of DiNardo in the photo, was rector of St Paul's seminary in Pittsburgh from 1986 to 1990. DiNardo was a part-time professor and spiritual director of the seminarians there in the early 1980s. Donald Wuerl was rector of the seminary during the same period, 1980--85. An anonymous comment on a Washington Catholic blog, for what it's worth, says, "The saying was at St. Paul's Seminary in Pittsburgh that you couldn't make it unless you had a twrill [twirl?] with Wuerl." Engel says in The Rite of Sodomy, "The seminary had a reputation for rampant homosexuality going back to the days of Bishop Wright." (p 712) In fact, Wright founded it in its current form in 1965.

Randy Engel doesn't mention DiNardo at all in The Rite of Sodomy, although she mentions Wuerl as a gay-friendly Bishop of Pittsburgh, and she's fairly detailed on Wright's career. DiNardo, 69, isn't that much younger than Wuerl, 78, and his earlier career was centered in Pittsburgh and the Vatican bureaucracy. According to Wikipedia,

DiNardo was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Vincent Leonard on July 16, 1977. He then served as parochial vicar at St. Pius X Church in Brookline until 1980. In 1981, he was named Assistant Chancellor of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and part-time professor at St. Paul Seminary. While at St. Paul, he served as spiritual director to the seminarians.

From 1984 to 1990, DiNardo worked in Rome as a staff member of the Congregation for Bishops in the Roman Curia. During this time, he also served as the director of Villa Stritch (1986–1989), the house for American clergy working for the Holy See, and an adjunct professor at the Pontifical North American College.

Upon his return to the United States in 1991, he was named Assistant Secretary for Education for the Pittsburgh diocese and concurrently served as co-pastor with Paul J. Bradley of Madonna del Castello Church in Swissvale. He became the founding pastor of Saints John & Paul Parish in Franklin Park in 1994.

John Wright, who was Bishop of Pittsburgh from 1959 to 1969, served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1969 until his death in 1979. Wuerl became Wright's secretary as Bishop of Pittsburgh in 1967 and moved with him to Rome, continuing as his secretary as prefect. As Bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, Wuerl probably had some role in bringing DiNardo back to Pittsburgh from Rome and also served as a co-consecrator at DiNardo's 1998 consecration as Bishop of Sioux City.

Neumayr's article quotes a great deal mostly about Wright from other sources, which I've already quoted here, and in fact he's skimpy on other details of chronology, which I've had to fill in from Wikipedia. I think it's also significant that The Rite of Sodomy is sufficiently out of date that it doesn't mention DiNardo at all, even though he's now a key figure in AmChurch who owes his rise pretty clearly to Wuerl.

And this completely leaves out the role of mentors in Rome who must also have had a good deal of influence on DiNardo's advancement. There's a great deal more we need to learn.