I had written some info about Thomas Collins, the new Archbishop of Toronto. I had already done two updates, and this is a lengthy profile from Lifesite, so I decided to devote a whole post to it.
Here are some highlights:
In both the diocese of Edmonton and that of St. Paul's where he was Bishop prior to Edmonton, Archbishop Collins installed the practice of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in order to foster vocations to the priesthood. His take on vocations was that in each parish, there are "three, four, five, 10" people being called to the priesthood or religious life.
By all accounts Collins is a traditional Catholic fostering prayer of the Rosary, reading of the Scriptures, and a view of life as a short journey to eternal life with God. He is a fan of Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton and fond of quoting the famous original televangelist Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Sounds good.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com today, Archbishop Collins, speaking from Edmonton, said that one of the "main" challenges facing the Church in Canada is "evangelizing and developing the culture of life, and spreading the faith within our country."
Sounds like we're on the same wave-length for that.
As archbishop of the influential Toronto archdiocese he will be confronted with politicians, who while claiming to be Catholic, are actively opposed to Church teaching on life and family issues. Archbishop Collins told LifeSiteNews.com that he looks forward to meeting with them.
Well, he can't very well say, off the bat, that he's going to deny the pro-aborts communion. Now from a PR perspective. But I don't have good vibes about this. Yes, he talks a good game (and it helps, given the state of affairs) but we need bishops who'll take action against dissident Catholics.
In 2005, speaking on the issue of Communion for pro-abortion politicians he said "If it was clear that the politician ... manifestly just rejected the Gospel, then I think the bishop would say to that person, 'Come to mass, listen to the words of the Gospel, but it's really not appropriate for you to receive communion.'"
That's a nice way to do it. Now will he actually do it? There's bound to be some pro-abort Catholic politicians in Toronto.
He sounds pretty orthodox, but orthodoxy is not enough, as the pontificate of Pope John Paul II shows. We need bishops who will actively take action against dissidents.
UPDATE:
Paul Tuns at Sobering Thoughts says:
Archbishop Collins has been a been a stronger episcopal voice than has Cardinal Ambrozic, but that isn't saying much. One would have hoped for a stronger voice than this: Archbishop Collins said of the issue of denying communion to politicians that openly dissent from the teaching of the Magisterium that (in the words of Canadian Catholic News) "such confrontations with politicians 'going astray' over moral teaching might 'scare away anyone who might want to be a Catholic politician'." On the positive side, he has asked Our Lady of Guadalupe to pray for him in his new mission. I don't presume to know better than the pope, but my first choice would have been the deeply intelligent and (more) orthodox Basilian Archbishop J. Michael Miller, the Secretary for the Congregation of Catholic Education.
