Remembering Bishop Matthew Clark

Dear Friends,

On Monday, January 30, our Diocese celebrated the funeral liturgy for Matthew Harvey Clark, the eighth Bishop of Rochester, NY (1979-2012). During the week of his death, people remembered his installation at the War Memorial, the Diocesan Synod, and the ways he embraced the Jewish Community, other interfaith communities as well as the ecumenical movement. People who prayed with him in these settings came to know the power and strength that comes from unity. And what about the Eucharist, offered at the cathedral for the gay and lesbian community? Tears flowed freely as those who thought they were unwanted were welcomed home.

Following his passing, I heard stories of individual encounters with “Matt,” as many called him. “He came to my house for my meatballs.” “He told my husband and me to let him know when our start-up science equipment company went public so he could buy in.” “We saw him a couple of times a year at Bonaventure games.” As heartwarming as these stories are, I would like to spend the rest of this blog being grateful for the ways that Bishop Clark came to know, understand, love and support the women of this Diocese who sought, then and now, to be included in the Church at every level of ministry.

I was part of a group that invited Bishop Clark for lunch at a member’s home, about a year after he came. We ate in the kitchen. The menu was tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches. (This was long before Barack Obama put these items on the map at Magnolia’s on Park Avenue!) He listened attentively, questioned profoundly, doubted the history we recounted. But he came back to us, over and over again. Not just to us, but to other women whose life-truths and convictions moved him deeply. When he wrote a pastoral letter in 1982 – “Fire in the Thornbush” – he talked about how much he had learned from women of every age and circumstance across the Diocese. He admitted getting his thoughts and actions wrong at times and apologized to women for the hurt he did them. The letter won national critical acclaim. More importantly, we knew it came from the depths of him.

Later, Bishop Clark was named the chair of the US Bishops’ Committee on Women in Church and Society. The name of the committee as well as the work went through various revisions. In the end, the pastoral on women proposed by the US Bishops never passed. The committee faded into history, but Bishop Clark continued to be the friend and supporter of women in the national Church, as well as in our Diocese.

After his retirement, Bishop Clark spent a day with some women at Notre Dame Retreat Center in Canandaigua (2017). These women were part of a group, drawn from across the nation, who had met over shared concerns and experiences for over 30 years. We met with our brother Matt to hear what he had to say about the Church in our times. These are his thoughts from the notes I took that day:

At a personal level, make sense out of what has happened. Pass on to others what God has offered us.

Going forward, be sure of these two things: The Church is an ancient structure which recognizes the Apostolic mission. Apostolic witness has not changed.

He hoped that the principle of synodality would catch on, together with subsidiarity. He believed that a strong Conference of Bishops depends on the wisdom of the laity. The gifts and presence of women, clearly and visibly active when we come together to deliberate or celebrate, is needed. This wouldn’t happen unless synodality and subsidiarity happened.

Bishop Clark called for a recovery of the energy of Vatican II, a renewal of moral theology and the understanding that priests are ordained for the service of the church, not for the domination of the church. He wanted people to care for the earth and serve the poor and vulnerable (who are not included between the parentheses). He hoped that our Church would be prophetic in expectation of a just social order.

There’s just one other thought about Bishop Clark’s life that I’d like to mention. I haven’t seen it talked about anywhere. Bishop Clark suffered both physically and with people in his years of service. He suffered in conflict, in times of opposition to those who challenged justice and unity. As Bishop, he met the sexual abuse crisis head on. In it, he found suffering – the suffering of others and his own. He suffered because people suffered. In all of this, he walked in the shadow of the Suffering Christ. He could not have been a Bishop without embracing the cross.

We say goodbye for now to this man whom we were privileged to have among us as our shepherd, Matthew, who knew, as it says in Matthew 10.10, how to bring out of his storehouse the new and the old.

~Sister Joan Sobala