New Archbishop

Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but alcoholic preferences are typically kept secret by officials in high-ranking places. CEO’s aren’t going to allow their late-night, or worse mid-day, drinking habits come out. Neither would a senator, a mayor or a high school principal. So when the fourth paragraph of an article that runs on the front page of The New York Times contains a line that reads, “a Falstaffian fellow who talks of his love of the Brewers baseball team and Miller beer,” people will notice. When that sentence begins with “Archbishop Dolan” and ends “who takes obvious joy in donning his bishop’s robes and pounding his bishop’s staff as he tromps into church,” people should cry scandal and start looking to CNN for video of his imminent arrest. But they don’t, and he wasn’t.

The archbishop in question is Timothy M. Dolan, formerly the archbishop of Milwaukee. When the article ran, he had been recently named to lead the Archdiocese of New York.

The article ran on Feb. 24, 2009, in the front page top-fold section. It included a full-color picture, the feature of the page, of Archbishop Dolan standing with his predecessor, Edward M. Egan. In the photo, Archbishop Dolan appears to be howling, maybe with laughter.

The libel claim of this article fits some of the 5 questions. Published? Yes. Identification? Yes. Defamatory? Probably could be proven. True? Probably could not be proven. Malice? No.

What is assumed in this assessment is that Dolan would want to sue for libel for what could be called excessive emphasis on his drinking, it later implies he likes Jameson’s in his coffee. But there’s no defamation in reporting on a personality. And that is what Dolan is, and the writer Michael Powell is presenting, the new, more easy-going archbishop who jokes with his parishioners. He relates to them, that’s not defamatory.