Abp. Listecki

Very interesting comments from John Allen.

Ask any random sample of five people who know Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee to describe him, and the odds are good that the phrase “down to earth” will come up more than once. Affable and approachable, Listecki may be one of the few prelates who could have followed the legendarily gregarious Archbishop Timothy Dolan in Milwaukee and not seem, at least a little bit, like a stuffed shirt in comparison.

That affability doesn’t mean Listecki shirks from taking strong stands – a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Listecki has publicly chastised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her interpretation of church teaching on abortion, criticized Notre Dame for awarding an honorary doctorate to President Barack Obama, and once even warned parents not to take their kids to see “The Golden Compass” because, he said, the movie “tries to lead them away from God.”

Yet whether people agree with Listecki on content or not, most give him high marks for style, especially his “regular guy” demeanor. Whatever else one might say, Listecki clearly doesn’t have a Renaissance prince model of the bishops’ office. --Quoted by BadgerCatholic

The interview is a good read. No ground-breaking stuff there, but you see in Listecki's responses precisely what Allen captured above.