Farewell, Timothy Dolan, Civil-Rights Stalwart

Cardinal Timothy Dolan waves at Signora di Guadalupe church in Monte Mario, ahead of the Conclave and the election of the new pope, in Rome, Italy, May 4, 2025. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Let me start with something that makes my heart sing.

The new archbishop of New York, Ronald Hicks, has said that time spent as a missionary in an orphanage in Mexico changed his life.

When he was made an auxiliary bishop in his native Chicago, he recounted how he knew he was being called to the priesthood but put off going to seminary for a year so that he could learn Spanish. He wanted to be able to minister to people on their terms, in their words, where they were — a beautiful thing.

One of the obstacles we face in the United States, especially after the Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade, is communicating that helping people — mothers, most especially — is what the pro-life movement is about. It’s more than making sure babies are born and not aborted. We want to see families flourish. That’s what the pro-life movement is about: accompaniment. Radical hospitality. Love. You can’t get away from these things if you are committed to making sure every innocent human life is welcomed into our world. Of course, all too often, mothers, who often don’t feel like they are mothers when they are unexpectedly pregnant, feel all kinds of pressure to abort the child in her womb — for work, for family, for her boyfriend, because of money. There’s an unholy litany she may find herself up against.

So a pastor with a heart for children, making sure no one is orphaned — this is imperative.

Thank You, Cardinal Dolan!

There is something bittersweet about the news of a new archbishop in New York. And that’s not only because the man currently in the job may have once answered a call from me while at a World Series game at Yankee Stadium. (I’m pretty sure that’s an experience I get only once in life.)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is a man who loves God and the church.

And: For most of his tenure here, I’ve met in a small group a few times a year to talk with Cardinal Dolan about life issues. In 2011, he established a Pro-Life Commission, which he tasked with bringing things to his attention as an advisory conscience for the archdiocese. The meetings are off the record, as is the nature of advising, but it would be no news scoop if I told you we spent time on assisted suicide — from policy and pastoral perspectives — among other things, at our meeting this fall. He wanted to make sure that in the everyday life of the behemoth that is the Catholic Church in New York, the civil-rights issue of our lives doesn’t fall through the cracks in the abortion capital of the U.S.

In one interview with me over the years, he said:

What we’ve got now is a culture where sometimes abortion is preferred. Abortion is pushed. Abortion is advocated. And there are some people who would like to see abortion even mandated.

I’ve been grateful to see his renewed commitment to the Sisters of Life over his time here. When this community of religious sisters was founded, Cardinal O’Connor, their founder, told women that they could come to the Catholic Church, and we would walk with them and their babies. The existence of the Sisters of Life makes that true. In February 2019, Cardinal Dolan stood in their Midtown Manhattan convent — where women and babies live with them — reiterating that promise after Andrew Cuomo expanded abortion here.

This is not friendly territory for the unborn. In some zip codes in the diocese, more black babies are killed by abortion than are born.

It weighed heavily on his heart that an archdiocesan building was adjacent to the flagship abortion business here in town until the abortions finally, recently, stopped for good there. And he put people to work praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, praying for an end to abortion. Without fanfare. Without politics. Pure prayer. There was livestreamed Eucharistic adoration a few times, with the help of Franciscan friars and other priests and deacons in the diocese. (One of which was the cardinal’s idea.) On at least one occasion — the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 2020 — there were Fellowship of Catholic University students participating in a 24-hour prayer vigil for a culture of life in New York. Some of these young people I saw with hearts overflowing talking to fellow young people — including some of them outside the clinic around the block. All love. Pure love.

I remember a period, in some of his first years here, when I’d frequently make it to the 7 a.m. Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. If Cardinal Dolan was around, without another Mass of the day somewhere else in the archdiocese, he would usually celebrate the first Mass of the day there. So often, especially in those early years, he would preach about the devil. I always figured he was giving some insight into what he was facing from day to day in New York — the smoke of Satan attacking innocents, and in the institution of the church. I knew that he was coming out of his morning holy hour. That was as recollected as it gets. As close to Jesus and His will with clarity as it gets.

The media don’t quite get that. But I’m grateful for it. It’s dark out here, and we need fathers who love life. Especially as we hit new lows in our laws.

Avoidance, No More

Since we last met here: Jews were killed for being Jews on a beach in Australia. Brown University had its own murders. Illinois and New York have embraced assisted suicide. Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, allegedly by their mentally ill son. Donald Trump seemed to think Meathead deserved it. I could go on.

So I’ll be honest, I was delaying, trying for hours to avoid beginning this newsletter. There is so much dark to write about. And I’ve tried to not be a font of outrage. I did enough of that in my earlier years.

I hate that it happened, but I have been consoled to see how many people — and, yes, conservatives — seem genuinely jarred by the murder of the Reiners. How could you not love Meathead? And, as much as the diner scene may make me blush, When Harry Met Sally, for what we get from secular culture, is dear.

But the Reiners and their son. One of the reasons I was so mad about the president’s abhorrent remarks Monday about the murders is: So many young men in America are suffering. And I personally know so many parents who are loving their children who are struggling with drug addictions and mental illness. (Often the drug addiction is self-medicating the mental illness.)

My friend Kelly Rosati is among those parents. She works with Kay Warren, the wife of The Purpose-Driven Life author Rick Warren, and the nonprofit ministry Kay established, Hope for Brighter Tomorrows. (Kelly, a lawyer and advocate for children and families, is president.) The Warrens’ son, Matthew, killed himself after a lifelong struggle with mental illness. They are all too aware of the pain of worrying what a child will do — if he is off his medication, if things get way too dark in his head and in his heart. Kelly and her husband, John, (who are beloved friends of mine) adopted children from foster care, all who suffered trauma before they became part of the Rosati family. These couples know the pain — and the fear. Wanting to fix what only medicine and Divine Providence can. (And often being told by well-meaning but not-helpful fellow Christians that they must not be praying enough, or their children would be well. Prayer is powerful, but life is also not that easily explained.)

Kelly sent an email to a group of parents that Kay and she are in regular contact with who fear for their children and what they might do. She wrote, in part:

Perhaps limit the time we spend listening and reading stories about the [Reiner] case? Perhaps be extra intentional about your boundaries and surrounding yourselves with the micro joys that fill your bucket? And best of all, perhaps spend more unhurried time in the presence of Immanuel, God with us, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief and near to our broken hearts? He is there for us. Let’s cry out to him in our pain and grief.

Whatever we do, let’s not stuff, minimize and demonize our emotions. Let’s attend kindly and gently to them, feeling them and allowing them to move through our bodies.

I share that because there has been so much commentary this week criticizing the Reiners. What if they had done this? Why did they do that? Clearly there was a hellish struggle going on in the heart and mind of their son. They did their best. They are not to blame for their murders — because of the director’s politics or because of how they parented. Please stop with the critiques and judgments. It’s an awful story, and we need to be present to one another more in the struggles we may or may not share that we’re immersed in — and sometimes feel trapped in and enslaved to.

One of the topics I’ve been blessed to cover at the National Review Institute’s Center for Religion, Culture and Civil Society is child welfare. So, adoption, foster care, mental illness — so much trauma. These matter to a pro-life movement. Because every human life really, truly matters, and life is hard. The protection of the sanctity of human life and the goal of human and family flourishing has got to be our utmost priority.

If we would give ourselves a moment to stop stressing and being distracted around this time of year, we might recalibrate and renew our commitments in our daily lives and our civic responsibilities to these principles. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and all. And being stewards of all the gifts God has given us, as imperfect as each one of us is. Especially me, a sinner.

Around National Review

• Wesley J. Smith: NY Governor Hochul to Sign Assisted-Suicide Legalization Bill

• Assisted Suicide Legalized in Illinois

Michael J. New:

• New #WeCount Data Shows Abortion Uptick in 2025

Me:

• The Real Problem for Pro-Lifers

• New York Gets a New Bishop for Christmas: From One Midwestern Priest to Another

• Hating — and Murdering — a Ten-Year-Old Girl Because She Is Jewish

• New York’s Death Wish: Abandoning the Most Vulnerable to Assisted Suicide

• Norman Podhoretz, How I Loved You!

• If Only Donald Trump Was Just a Meathead

• Wiles and Rubio in Vanity Fair: On USAID & PEPFAR

• Free Jimmy Lai

• Hope in the Face of Antisemitism

• The Land of Lincoln, and Home State of the Pope, Opts for Suicide

Other Things

There are so many things I want to share with you in this edition of The Lifeline. What a good thing it is that no one is busy this time of year and everyone has all the time in the world to read! Maybe you can read it out loud to Santa as he wraps the toys for your children on Christmas morning?

The January issue of First Things has an essay by Alexander Raikin. He’s known by his friends and colleagues as Sasha and has been doing important research on the Culture of Death, as John Paul II put it, uniting many ecumenically under a banner of resisting it and insisting on life and love. He’s written for National Review on assisted suicide in Canada, which we talked about here.

In his new piece, here is a little of the scene-setting:

The best children’s hospital in the world for 2026, according to Newsweek and Statista, is the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto. I walked into SickKids in the summer of 2025 to see Krystal, a “mama bear” according to one of her friends, and Mo, who asked me not to use his real name because one of his children is receiving treatment at the hospital, and he fears retaliation. Krystal befriended Mo’s wife in the coffee lounge over the summer, and soon Mo was friends with Krystal, too.

We decided it would be best to speak in the wing of the pediatric unit, whispering whenever a nurse walked past. Mo and Krystal both credit religious faith—Mo is Muslim, while Krystal and her husband Jeremy are Canadian Reformed Christians—with fortifying them to bring children with Down syndrome into this world. Mo said his wife felt guilt-tripped by their healthcare team, who asked her immediately what quality of life she, Mo, and their three other children would have if she gave birth to a child with Down syndrome. “At the end of the day,” Mo told me, “I am not God. I cannot decide who lives, who doesn’t live.” Now, with his child with Down syndrome already five years old, the experience of raising him is “probably . . . the best thing in my life.” Krystal experienced the same pressure and reward. She was advised three times by clinicians that she could “terminate at any point and start again.” She didn’t want to start again. She wanted her child to be born.

Their daughter was born, but it was a fight to keep her alive.

As Sasha notes:

SickKids Hospital is not the only institution that has allowed children with disabilities to die of treatable illnesses. It accords with the direction of the field of medicine over the past century. The preventable deaths of children with disabilities occur, for the most part, without media interest. To understand why the law and societal outrage have failed to stop this practice, we must trace the history of child murder in North America since 1915.

What are we doing to ourselves — and our most vulnerable?

I’ll add that when Kathy Hochul finally told us this week that she’s going to make assisted suicide legal in New York State, I was devastated. We knew it was coming. But I was praying for miracles.