The Catholic News Agency portal (December 19, 2025) reports that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, upon retirement as archbishop of New York, plans to continue “working” through preaching retreats, teaching, and documentary projects while celebrating freedom from administrative duties. The article quotes Dolan’s flippant remarks about schedule flexibility and his intention to seek permission from his successor for activities, framing priestly ministry as a self-directed career rather than supernatural vocation.
Naturalistic Reduction of the Priestly Office
Dolan’s declaration that “your life is your work” for priests constitutes a radical inversion of Catholic priesthood’s essence. The Council of Trent (Session XXIII, Chapter I) defined priesthood as instituting “those who are to offer, sacrifice, and forgive sins” through Holy Orders – not mere occupational engagement. Pius XI’s Ad Catholici Sacerdotii (1935) condemned precisely this modernist reduction, teaching that priesthood exists “not for themselves but for the people and for God” through the ex opere operato administration of sacraments. Dolan’s “Yippee!” response to abandoning governance duties reveals a caricature of shepherding condemned by Ezekiel 34:2-4 – “Woe to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?”
The cardinal’s retirement vision centers entirely on natural activities – walking, reading, self-directed prayer – while omitting any mention of offering the Holy Sacrifice, hearing confessions, or spiritual combat. This mirrors the Lamentabili Sane condemnation (Proposition 40) that sacraments arose from “circumstances and events” rather than divine institution. True Catholic priests, as Pius XII taught in Mediator Dei (1947), enter “a sharing in the priesthood of Christ Himself” which continues “until death with the lasting obligations it imposes.”
Theological Subversion Through Secularized Language
The article’s language systematically desacralizes ecclesiastical office:
“Dolan told Father Dave Dwyer, a Paulist priest, executive director of Busted Halo Ministries, and cohost…”
This presentation of Dwyer as “priest-executive-cohost” exemplifies the conciliar sect’s erasure of ontological priestly character. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 124) forbade clergy from secular occupations “unbecoming to the clerical state,” while Pius X’s Vehementer Nos (1906) condemned “the mixing and confusing of the two powers” – sacred and profane.
Dolan’s Fox Business interview about teaching offers and documentary projects manifests the heresy of Americanism condemned in Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiae (1899), which warned against adapting Church discipline “to the character and nature of any particular people.” His enthusiasm for media ventures contrasts starkly with Pius XI’s Vigilanti Cura (1936), which mandated “absolute prohibition” of clergy involvement in questionable cinema – let alone modernist documentaries distorting Church history.
Omission of Eschatological Reality
The cardinal’s retirement commentary conspicuously avoids:
- Preparing for divine judgment (Hebrews 9:27)
- The four last things (death, judgment, heaven, hell)
- Penance for past failures in governance
- Spiritual warfare against conciliar apostasy
This silence embodies the modernist “cult of man” condemned in Pius X’s Pascendi (1907), which noted that modernists “make civilization and progress consist in man’s ever-increasing self-assertion.” Dolan’s vision of retirement as leisure time contrasts with Paul VI’s authentic teaching that priests remain “soldiers of Christ” until death (Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, 1967).
Symptom of Conciliar Ecclesiological Collapse
Dolan’s jocular remark about asking his successor’s permission –
“I’ll be one of his priests…Your Excellency, would it be OK…”
– exposes the conciliar sect’s destruction of hierarchical order. The 1917 Code (Canon 118) established bishops as successors to apostles with full ordinary jurisdiction, not corporate managers granting permissions to subordinates. The Council of Trent (Session XXIII, Chapter IV) mandated bishops reside perpetually in dioceses except for grave causes – not retire to pursue personal projects.
This retirement paradigm constitutes apostasy from St. John Chrysostom’s teaching that “the priesthood is exercised on earth but ranks among heavenly ordinances” (On the Priesthood, III.4). The conciliar sect’s clerical careerism fulfills Pius X’s warning in Pascendi that modernists would reduce priesthood to “a mere organ of the collectivity” rather than mediators of divine grace.
Contrast With True Catholic Tradition
Authentic pre-conciliar bishops like Cardinal Merry del Val (d. 1930) spent retirement in prayer at the Vatican Grottoes, while St. Robert Bellarmine (d. 1621) used his final years writing De Arte Bene Moriendi on holy death. Dolan’s planned documentary work evokes the anti-clerical satires condemned in Pius XI’s Vigilanti Cura, not the evangelizing cinema of Venerable Fulton Sheen.
The article’s celebration of Dolan’s media appearances confirms Pius XII’s warning in Humani Generis (1950) that modernists “welcome new theological opinions” through “books, periodicals, and congresses.” True shepherds follow Pius X’s Haerent Animo (1908): “The priest must ever fix his gaze upon Christ crucified” – not television cameras and university lecterns.
Conclusion: Apostasy Made Manifest
Dolan’s retirement plans epitomize Vatican II’s destruction of sacred priesthood. As St. Alphonsus Liguori taught (Dignity and Duties of the Priest, 1759), priests must “work as long as they live for the salvation of souls” through sacrifice – not become ecclesiastical retirees. This spectacle confirms Archbishop Lefebvre’s 1987 warning: “The post-conciliar church is a new church that has broken with its past.” Only by rejecting the conciliar sect’s anti-hierarchy and returning to integral Catholic tradition can the priesthood’s eternal glory be restored.
Source:
Cardinal Dolan says of retirement: ‘I’ll always keep working’ (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 19.12.2025