The long road to replacing Cardinal O'Malley
The announcement of Bishop Robert Henning as the next Archbishop of Boston followed years of public speculation and private lobbying
The announcement Monday that Bishop Richard Henning will replace Cardinal Sean O’Malley as Archbishop of Boston has ended one of the longest-running points of speculation in the Church in the United States.
O’Malley steps down after more than two decades in charge of what has traditionally been one of the country’s most prominent sees. He turned 80 years old in June, aging him out of participation in a future conclave, and putting him more than five years past the nominal episcopal retirement age.
The announcement of Henning as his replacement follows years of speculation about who would follow the cardinal in Boston, with the Providence bishop something of a surprise choice, having only arrived in Rhode Island in 2023.
From auxiliary bishop of Long Island to Archbishop of Boston in less than two years is something of a meteoric rise for Henning. But his sudden ascent follows a years-long behind the scenes battle over who would replace Cardinal O’Malley.
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Although Cardinal O’Malley became theoretically eligible for retirement in 2019, no one seriously expected his to be a prompt departure from office.
In the wake of the Spotlight scandals of the early 2000s and the public disgrace of his predecessor Cardinal Bernard Law, O’Malley arrived in Boston having already made a name for himself as an unflinching confronter of historical scandals. Like his eventual successor in Boston, he spent only a few months in his previous diocesan assignment in Palm Beach before being asked to move to Massachusetts.
Following his election in 2013, Pope Francis named O’Malley as both president of the newly established Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and a member of Francis’ C9 kitchen cabinet of cardinal advisors — both positions O’Malley still retains for the time being.
After the annus horribilis of 2018, which saw the twin scandals of Theodore McCarrick and the Chilean episcopal abuse crisis, O’Malley emerged as an internationally credible figure on abuse, and as a Churchman who could publicly challenge Pope Francis’ handling of sensitive cases — as he did over the case of Bishop Juan Barros.
As such, few expected Francis to accept O’Malley’s resignation in a hurry, especially given the pope’s marked preference for leaving close collaborators in post past retirement age. But few expected O’Malley to continue past 80, even if only by a few months.
Several sources close to O’Malley have told The Pillar that the cardinal himself was in no hurry to retire and that he himself pushed back against different moves to appoint a successor — a stance which both delayed and influenced conversations over who would eventually follow him.
One senior Boston cleric, who worked closely with O’Malley for years, told The Pillar that O’Malley resisted suggestions he step aside in recent years, both because he felt he was still doing a good job as archbishop and in his other roles, and because he wanted to be a serving diocesan bishop for as long as he was eligible to attend a future conclave.
“I think Cardinal Sean has always been clear he wants to be ‘at work’, and never known as the ‘former’ anything. I think he especially [didn’t] want to go into a conclave as ‘emeritus’ anything.”
The same cleric described O’Malley as someone with “a lot of mental bandwidth.”
“I wouldn’t describe him as a micromanager, but he definitely wants to be involved in everything that is going on,” the cleric said. “I can easily see this playing into talking about who would follow him [in Boston].”
By all accounts, O’Malley did have a considerable influence, directly and indirectly, on the process which led to Bishop Henning’s appointment on Monday.
Sources close to the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome told The Pillar that discussions over the next Archbishop of Boston had been going on “for years” and that O’Malley was one of a number of strong voices in the conversation.
“There were many opinions,” one official told The Pillar, “and not a lot of agreement.”
The official told The Pillar that several influential American prelates had initially lobbied for San Diego’s Cardinal Robert McElroy to be transferred to Boston, led by Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich, who, as a member of the Dicastery for Bishops, wields considerable influence over American episcopal appointments.
“It was a strong push for [McElroy],” the official said. “It was clear this was considered a sensitive appointment and there was a desire [from Cupich] to have his own voice in the matter.”
The same official described Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, as “very cool” on the suggestion of McElroy.
“The nuncio is, of course, an important point of consultation,” he said, “and without speaking for him I would say he had concerns that the appointment not be polarizing, either for the faithful or among the bishops.”
The senior Boston cleric told The Pillar that the possibility of Cardinal McElroy coming to Boston was discussed among the archdiocese’s priests and staff, calling the prospect “in the water” in the archdiocese, especially in 2022-23.
“A lot of people heard the rumor that this was a possibility,” the cleric said. “I don’t know that many people [in Boston] considered it really likely, but we all heard it.”
But an official at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State told The Pillar that the prospect of a McElroy appointment was being pushed very seriously in Rome, to the point that in the early summer of 2023 the former Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl, flew to Rome to personally lobby Pope Francis about the appointment.
“I think that was the big push,” the official said, recalling that, after successive visits from Cardinals Wuerl and Cupich, Francis appeared to shut down talk of transferring McElroy.
“He became very annoyed, I think. It was too much, [the pope] felt pressured and didn’t want to hear about it.”
But, the official said, Cardinal O’Malley’s own reluctance to retire — and his irritation at his fellow American cardinals effectively lobbying to have him replaced — was a crucial factor in determining the final decision over his successor.
“[Cardinal O’Malley] works very closely with the pope on many issues, in the council [of cardinal advisors] and the commission [for the protection of minors]. He and the pope have a relationship going back many years,” he said. “It’s one thing to ask for a particular appointment without the support of the nuncio, but it’s another to ask the pope to replace a collaborator against his own wishes.”
O’Mally was widely understood, both in Rome and among the U.S. bishops, to be angered by the concerted lobbying effort over his replacement, which he saw as infringing on his own prerogative to inform the decision.
According to several familiar with the process, it was O’Malley himself who eventually made the strongest argument for Henning to be his replacement. Though at one point O’Malley was known to favor the possibility closer to home, with several sources in Rome and Boston telling The Pillar that Boston auxiliary Bishop Mark O’Connell was often mentioned as a potential successor.
One official close to the Dicastery for Bishops told The Pillar that O’Connell, whom O’Malley named vicar general of the archdiocese in January 2023, was at one point considered a strong possibility, especially in the later half of last year.
“I think there was a moment where it was possible, after the pope ruled out McElroy,” the official said, but added that O’Malley “did not seem to favor beginning with [O’Connell] as a coadjutor, and the conversation began all over again.”
Bishop Henning’s emergence as the eventual successor, with O’Malley’s personal backing, the official suggested, owed as much to the years-long stalemate over a nomination as it did to Henning’s own reputation as a pastorally minded and evangelizing bishop, well-liked by all sides.
The newly installed Providence bishop was still an unorthodox pick, having only been in charge of the diocese for a little over a year, after what he called a five-month time of “apprenticeship” as coadjutor to Bishop Thomas Tobin.
Once Cardinal O’Malley approached the age of 80, the official said, there was “a certain urgency” to identify a candidate, and Henning was presented as someone “already known, vetted, and acceptable to everyone” — with O’Malley reportedly feeling eventually confident enough in Henning to lobby for the man as his own successor.
Looking beyond the Boston appointment, with several other American archdioceses due for changes in leadership in the coming months and years, the unspoken subtext of Henning’s appointment may be how contentious the process has become for naming bishops to major U.S. sees.
While some major archdioceses with bishops over 75 — like Galveston-Houston, Washington, and Chicago — will likely be left for a few more years before their cardinal incumbents are replaced, others may not be able to wait that long.
As those appointments come up, the question may become: are there enough Hennings to go around?
If Cardinal O’Malley has more clout with Pope Francis than Cardinals Wuerl and Cupich do, then I find that very reassuring.
Bishop Henning, from what I observed in Providence from afar, was a very fair man, not in any one camp. He was a manager, very committed to an orderly downsizing of a bloated northeastern bureaucracy which is imploding in the twin catastrophes of the Boomer demographic chasm and the sex abuse crisis. Which, in fact, makes him perfect for Boston, too. Same, but bigger.