Archbishop Levada Named to Vatican's Top Doctrinal Post

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI named Archbishop William J. Levada of San Francisco as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency charged with protecting and promoting the church's teachings on faith and morals.

The appointment, announced May 13, marked the first time a U.S. prelate has headed the congregation. It is the oldest of the Vatican's nine congregations and is considered primary in responsibility and influence.

Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was prefect of the doctrinal congregation from 1981 until the death of Pope John Paul II in April. The appointment of his successor was closely watched, and sources said cardinals and archbishops from Italy, Austria and Spain were also considered as candidates for the position.

In naming Archbishop Levada, 68, the pope chose someone who has worked closely with the congregation over the last 30 years. He was a congregation staff member from 1976 to 1982 and has been a bishop-member of the congregation since 2000.

In the 1980s, Archbishop Levada collaborated with then-Cardinal Ratzinger as one of a small group of bishops appointed to write the "Catechism of the Catholic Church." In November 2003 he began a three-year term as chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine.

Archbishop Levada met privately with Pope Benedict 10 days before his appointment was announced. His new position means that he will be named a cardinal in a future consistory.

Archbishop Levada, who has headed the Archdiocese of San Francisco since 1995, was a key figure in the approval of new norms to handle cases of priestly sexual abuse.

In 2002, he was a member of the U.S.-Vatican commission that made final revisions to the norms, which laid out a strict policy on priestly sex abuse and provided for removal from ministry or laicization of priests who have sexually abused minors.

Earlier this year, he and four other U.S. church leaders returned to the Vatican for talks on extending the norms.

Archbishop Levada will now head the Vatican agency that oversees the handling of priestly sexual abuse cases, under policies initiated by the late Pope John Paul in 2001 and 2003. In some "grave and clear cases" of sexual abuse, the doctrinal congregation can dismiss the priest from the priesthood by decree, without a formal church trial.

In San Francisco, Archbishop Levada recently warned that pending action on more than 70 cases of clergy sex abuse could bring substantial financial pressure on the archdiocese.

The archbishop also has had experience with the pastoral side of another issue that has drawn increasing attention from the Vatican's doctrinal congregation: same-sex marriage proposals.

Archbishop Levada told a Synod of Bishops in 1997 that on the homosexuality issue, his own experience in San Francisco has taught him how easily dialogue can be overtaken by political pressure.

"The city's human rights commission named me as contributing to a 'climate' of discrimination against homosexuals because I said public recognition should not be given to so-called 'gay marriages,'" he said.

The same year, Archbishop Levada had opposed a city ordinance requiring all agencies contracting with the city to provide spousal benefits to domestic partners of their employees. Noncompliance could have jeopardized the church's social service contracts with the city.

At the archbishop's urging, the city changed the ordinance so that employees of church agencies could designate any legally domiciled member of their household for spousal benefits.

In 2004, Archbishop Levada helped lead a prayer rally for the defense and promotion of marriage after the city of San Francisco decided to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

William Joseph Levada was born June 15, 1936, in Long Beach, Calif. His great-grandparents immigrated to California from Portugal and Ireland in the 1860s.

After studies at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, he was sent to Rome for formation studies at the North American College. He later earned a doctorate in theology at Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained in St. Peter's Basilica as a priest of the Los Angeles Archdiocese Dec. 20, 1961.

He worked in Los Angeles as an associate pastor, teacher and campus ministry chaplain and returned to Rome in 1976 as a staff official of the doctrinal congregation. During his six years of service there, he continued teaching theology part-time at Gregorian University.

On his return to California in 1982 he was named secretary of the California Catholic Conference, a public policy agency of the state's bishops. He was made an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles in 1983 and three years later was named archbishop of Portland, Ore., where he served until 1995.

Archbishop Levada has served on a number of committees of the U.S. bishops' conference, including doctrine, pastoral research and practices, pro-life activities and communications.

He was a member of the U.S. bishops' Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians, formed in 2003 to develop guidelines for implementing the principles spelled out in a 2002 document from the Vatican's doctrinal congregation.

He was also a member of the drafting committee that worked from 1983 to 1992 on one of the most divisive issues ever to face the U.S. bishops' conference, a proposed pastoral letter on women in church and society.

As the letter neared its final stages, he and another committee member wrote a minority report seeking to correct what they regarded as inconsistencies in the theological underpinnings of the document. In the end the pastoral letter was not approved as a conference statement.

Archbishop Levada has served on the governing boards of The Catholic University of America and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

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