Left behind (a Catholic version).

NEW ROLE MODELS "For most of his life Albert Einstein had the portraits of two scientists, Newton and Maxwell, hanging on his wall as role models to inspire him. Toward the end of life, however, he took them down and replaced them with portraits of Albert Schweitzer and Mahatma Gandhi. He needed new role models, he said--not of success, but of humble service."--Philip Yancet (Christianity Today, Dec. 4, 2000)

The dead in Chicago are quite active. Outside one Chicagoland cemetery, a young woman buried there sometimes waves down passing cars late at night. Known as "Resurrection Mary," she presumably looks for a ride away from death. She even has a Web site, www. graveyards.com/resurrection/mary.html. And, of course, every election day many dead Chicagoans vote early and often.

Recently another dead Chicagoan emerged from the grave. A Catholic bishop of Chicago, dead for 102 years, moved from one cemetery to another. He did not try to flag down a motorist, nor, as far as I know, has he processed his change of address for voter registration.

The recently moved James Duggan became Chicago's fourth bishop at 34 years of age in 1859. The lingering effects of the 1857 financial panic, the Civil War, and Catholic ethnic tensions within Chicago probably contributed to his eventual mental breakdown. He was removed from office in 1869 and spent the rest of his life in a sanatorium in St. Louis run by the Sisters of Charity. Bishop Duggan's body was returned to Chicago after his death in 1899, and he was buried in Calvary Cemetery on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Had it not been for the construction of a mausoleum for the exclusive use of Catholic bishops in another Chicagoland Catholic cemetery in the early 20th century, Bishop Duggan never would have joined the roster of Chicago's active dead. Over the Bishops' Mausoleum entrance the Latin inscription Resurrecturis (those who will rise again) presumably refers to those bishops entombed within this imposing edifice, not Resurrection Mary. Once built, all the dead bishops of Chicago were rounded up and entombed there, except for Bishop Duggan.

Did his mental illness originally ostracize him from joining his dead brother bishops in this Medici-like mausoleum? Who knows, but this spring he did move there. Cardinal Francis George, the present archbishop of Chicago, who presided at Duggan's reinterment, said, "We right a historical wrong .... I hope that we can make visible the silent suffering of mental illness and that we will never leave anyone behind as we left Bishop Duggan behind." Noble thoughts for sure.

But this event got me to wondering: Why entomb bishops in such ornate mausoleums anyway? Doesn't this look like trying to preserve the tradition of an exclusive men's club for all eternity? Two bishops of Chicago decided to forego this deathly episcopal male bonding. Cardinal George Mundelein (archbishop from 1915 to 1939) opted for a crypt in the chapel of the major seminary he built. And Cardinal Albert Meyer (1958 to 1965) chose to be buried in the seminary's graveyard. I don't suspect these two churchmen have felt "left behind" in their current graves.

But let's not forget about the common folk who have been left behind both by the church and by society. Maybe we should reinter a suicide in the Bishops' Mausoleum to right the historical wrong that suicides at one time were prohibited by church law from being buried in consecrated ground? Or how about entombing the next homeless woman to die on the streets of Chicago in the mausoleum to signal disapproval of patriarchy and poverty? How about entombing a victim of racism in the mausoleum to reflect the values of Dwell In My Love, Cardinal George's recent pastoral letter on racism, issued just days after Duggan moved tombs.

I suspect the newly arrived Bishop Duggan and his brother bishops of Chicago will not have such company in the near future. Too bad. It would add substance to the stories of Chicago's active dead.

PETER GILMOUR ([e-mail]) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.