SPEAKING OF PROPHETS: BISHOP CARROLL T. DOZIER OF MEMPHIS IN TENNESSEE

Thirty-two years ago, Bishop Carroll T. Dozier, retired head of the Roman Catholic Church's Memphis Diocese, died after suffering a stroke. He was 74 years old.

Bishop Dozier, like Archbishop Hunthausen of whom I posted an article, was someone with whom I was acquainted with some familiarity.  

I first met the Bishop when he came to visit the seminarians from Memphis who, like me, were students at the Pontifical North American College seminary in Rome.  During these visits, he would often spend evenings in the Student Lounge sharing a beer and a snack or two with the seminarians and regaling us with stories about his seminary days and early days of Priesthood.

Bishop Dozier was perhaps the friendliest, most down-to-earth Bishop I have ever met in my entire life.  He was jovial and had a hardy laugh that I remember to this day, some 45 years later.

He was also a very controversial Bishop.

I remember that he was called to Rome in the Fall of 1976 for having offered Masses in Memphis to bring back to the Church Catholics who had abandoned the practice of their Faith on account of divorce or other disagreements with Church discipline.  His Masses drew capacity crowds to the municipal auditoriums where they were celebrated both in Memphis itself as well as the City of Jackson, Tennessee.  Prior to and after the Masses, estranged Catholics were offered opportunities to speak to Priests and seek counseling for ways they could return to the Church.

Bishop Dozier would also provide the Sacrament of Reconciliation at these Masses under the form of General Absolution rather than requiring the ordinary form of auricular (private and individual) confession of sins.  

According to Canon Law, General Absolution was only to be considerate appropriate and proper under extraordinary conditions, such as the absence of enough Priests to hear Confession in times of emergency or imminent danger of death.

Both Pope Paul VI and James Cardinal Knox, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, summoned Bishop Dozier to Rome on a number of occasions expressing their displeasure at his actions.  But, the Bishop refused to back down.

Shortly after his last summons to Rome in 1983, Pope Paul VI asked for and accepted Bishop Dozier’s resignation and Bishop J. Francis Stafford was named by the Holy Father to succeed him.

Bishop Dozier came to mind when I was writing about Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle, Washington.  These two Bishops were certainly ahead of their time and appear to have called for a pastoral care of souls very much in tune with that of Pope Francis many decades later.

And in his case, as in that of Archbishop Hunthausen, both seem to have been prophets who appeared on the Church’s horizon but simply at the wrong time.

In any case, my fond memories of Bishop Dozier linger to this day.  His optimism and his joy were infectious.  We need more Bishops like him now more than ever!

May God rest his soul and grant him the blessings of Eternal Life with Christ Jesus!