Daniel DiNardo


Daniel Nicholas DiNardo is an American cardinal of the Catholic Church. He is the second and current Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, serving since 2006. He previously served as Bishop of Sioux City from 1998 to 2004. On November 12, 2013, he was elected as the Vice President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. On November 15, 2016, he was elected as the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, exercising a leading administrative role in the Catholic Church in the United States, until his term ended in November of 2019.
DiNardo was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007. He is the first cardinal from a diocese in the Southern United States.

Early life and education

Daniel DiNardo was born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Nicholas and Jane DiNardo. One of four children, he has an older brother, Thomas; a twin sister, Margaret; and a younger sister, Mary Anne. The family later moved to Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. As a child, DiNardo would pretend to celebrate Mass in vestments sewn by his mother and at an altar his father constructed.
He attended St. Anne Elementary School from 1955 to 1963, and graduated from the Jesuit in 1967.
He then entered St. Paul Seminary at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he was a classmate of David Zubik. In 1969, DiNardo was accepted as a Basselin Scholar in philosophy at Theological College at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and earned a BA in 1971 and MA in 1972, both in philosophy.
He continued his studies in Rome, earning a S.T.B. at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a S.T.L. at the Patristic Institute "Augustinianum."

Priesthood

DiNardo was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Vincent Leonard on July 16, 1977. He then served as parochial vicar at St. Pius X Church in Brookline until 1980. In 1981, he was named Assistant Chancellor of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and part-time professor at St. Paul Seminary. While at St. Paul, he served as spiritual director to the seminarians.
From 1984 to 1990, DiNardo worked in Rome as a staff member of the Congregation for Bishops in the Roman Curia. During this time, he also served as the director of Villa Stritch, the house for American clergy working for the Holy See, and as an adjunct professor at the Pontifical North American College.
Upon his return to the United States in 1991, he was named Assistant Secretary for Education for the Pittsburgh diocese and concurrently served as co-pastor with Paul J. Bradley of Madonna del Castello Church in Swissvale. He became the founding pastor of Saints John & Paul Parish in Franklin Park in 1994.

Episcopal career

Bishop of Sioux City

On August 19, 1997, DiNardo was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on the following October 7 from Bishop Lawrence Soens, with Bishops Donald Wuerl and Raymond Burke serving as co-consecrators, in the . He adopted as his episcopal motto: Ave Crux Spes Unica, taken from the Latin hymn Vexilla Regis and meaning, "Hail, O Cross, Our Only Hope."
He succeeded Soens as the sixth Bishop of Sioux City upon the latter's retirement on November 28, 1998.

Archbishop of Galveston-Houston

DiNardo was later named Coadjutor Bishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, on January 16, 2004. The diocese was elevated to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese by John Paul II on the following December 29, and he thus became Coadjutor Archbishop. When Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Joseph Fiorenza, DiNardo succeeded him as the second Archbishop of Galveston-Houston on February 28, 2006. He received the pallium, a vestment worn by metropolitan bishops, from Benedict XVI on June 29 of that year.
He once commented, "There is a certain sense of the church in Texas...It is more laid-back, informal, which I think is good."
He was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Eusebio in the consistory of November 24, 2007. In 2008 he was awarded Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
On January 17, 2009, he was made a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture. In March 2009, he described the choice of President Barack Obama to be the commencement speaker for the University of Notre Dame's graduation ceremony as "very disappointing," given Obama's support for legal abortion.
Outside of the Archdiocese, Cardinal DiNardo serves on the Board of the National Catholic Partnership for Persons with Disabilities, a position to which he brings a certain empathy, contending as he does with significant hearing loss in both ears. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Catholic University of America, is an advisor to the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People and is part of the Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is the Grand Prior of the South West Lieutenancy of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, a Papal order of Knighthood, in which he holds the rank of Knight Grand Cross.
He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that selected Pope Francis.
On November 14, 2014, at the fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal DiNardo was elected as a delegate to the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family, pending Vatican approval.
On November 20, 2018, it was reported that Cardinal DiNardo has kept two priests accused of past abuse in current active ministry. John LaBonte accused the Rev. John Keller of sexually molesting him at age 16. The abuse allegedly included attempting to get him drunk and fondling him in bed. LaBonte first reported his allegation to the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in 2002. The archdiocese said in a reply that Keller admitted to "holding in a manner inappropriate for a priest" and promised to admit him to therapy. However, it also stated that Keller " any sexual intent" and claimed that it "could not conclude that" what happened "constituted sexual abuse." Keller remained in ministry. Furthermore, in a sworn affidavit, an alleged victim accused Rev. Terence Brinkman of sexual misconduct. The events allegedly took place during the 1970s. The archdiocese stated that the person making the accusation "provided a physical description that does not match Father Brinkman." DiNardo promised to release a list of credibly accused priests in January 2019. In November, CBS News spoke to 20 people who claim to have knowledge of incidents of misconduct, and none of them had been contacted.
On January 30, 2019, DiNardo released a list of names of 40 priests from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston who have faced allegations of sexual misconduct deemed credible by archdiocese officials in the past 70 years. One of them was Keller. However, he was criticized for allowing Keller to offer Mass publicly at his parish the morning after the list was released.

Personal

DiNardo wears hearing aids because calcium deposits in his ears have impaired his hearing. Despite his hearing difficulties, he still prefers to sing or chant parts of the Mass.
DiNardo suffered a stroke on March 15, 2019.