POLITICS: Cardinal Dolan may be retired — but he’ll always love New York City

Checking in on bishop’s moves

“I’m still a cardinal. Friends might call me Timothy, but I’m still a cardinal. Still a priest. Still loving New York,” Timothy Cardinal Dolan told me.

Remember the day you became an archbishop?

“Yeah, I’d had 7 ¹/₂ years in Milwaukee before coming to New York 17 years ago. I told my mom, ‘I’m kind of nervous. This is a big diocese. It’s got problems,’ and she said, ‘What are you worried about? They didn’t ask you to go there.’ ”

Faithful friend

“My first day walking into St. Patrick’s I’d heard troubling things. Like New Yorkers were haughty. Didn’t like people from the Midwest, journalists were offensive.”

What about friends? When you’re as high as an archbishop, can you have real friends?

“It’s more difficult. You got to be friendly with everybody. Real friends are few and far between. I love my priests, but can’t be as friendly with all because I’m their boss. Their shepherd. I think now I can begin to make friends. Like, you know about that gift you sent me? I drank it already.”

Not that I’m ungracious, but it was pretty expensive.

“And worth it. So last week, on my 76th birthday, I went out with four guys who’ve been secretaries for me in the past. Look, I had a baptism and a Mass with a thousand people this morning. I did a wake two days ago, a funeral Saturday. This stuff I’ll still do but I won’t have to go to meetings, cut budgets or those neuralgic decisions about merging parishes, moving priests, closing schools. Won’t have to do the stuff I don’t like.”

Mass appeal

“As for religion today, young adults from college to age 35, it’s up. The priesthood is up, but not as much as we’d like. People wanting a church wedding also up. Pardon my mentioning this, but donations have increased, too. We’ve had gloomy news about people leaving God. Not Catholic anymore. Don’t trust the church. I can’t be a Pollyanna about that. It’s definitely there.

“Other good things are happening. As for Catholic schools closing, first of all, there’s not as many kids as there used to be. Secondly, public schools, thank God, are trying to improve. Back then, kids went to our schools because they were better than the others. Same with hospitals, nursing homes and health-care facilities.

“As to special responsibilities as a former archbishop — it’s if my successor [Ronald Hicks] asks me to take them. Already he’s invited somewhere but can’t make it and he asked me to go in his place. I said, ‘Sure.’ I’m still on boards like the Catholic University of America, still have some duties left in Rome.”

Leo’s at bat

“I grew up in a loving family in the little town of Ballwin, Mo. Its heart was the neighborhood parish. I went to school there. I love what I do, but things have just become more complicated. More bureaucracies, more state demands, labor problems and accrediting problems that do absolutely not a thing to help us.

“And great that our new pope [Leo XIV] is American. A Yankee Doodle Dandy. Loves America, eats peanut butter. Loves the White Sox.”

The who? Please. They’re not the New York Yankees.

“And he’s from Chicago.”

Please. Dead people vote in Chicago.

So the Three Wise Men were on their way to Bethlehem from Third Avenue. Suddenly one ground his camel to a halt. He said: “Now, listen, guys, remember, no mentioning how much we paid for the gifts.”

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.