Although some New Yorkers may have been disappointed that Cardinal Timothy Dolan wasn’t elected to the papacy, his mother says she was relieved.
“We all knew that he would go all the way, is what we always said. All the way stops at where he’s at right now -- cardinal,” Shirley Dolan told NBC’s affiliate in St. Louis.
Vatican watchers worldwide had suggested that Dolan was a possible contender for pope. This wasn’t a surprise for his mother, who had heard these predictions since he was a teenager.
“People have been saying, since he entered the very first year of seminary, which was high school, 'He’ll be our first American pope,'” Dolan told the station.
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Dolan’s mother was anxious about the possibility of not seeing her son as frequently.
“The more they started talking about it over there, that’s what really started getting me upset. It’s not that he wouldn’t have been good for the church. I know he would have done a great job, but I want him here,” she said.
Dolan became an uncle while he was in the conclave to elect Pope Francis this week, and plans to baptize his new niece. His mother suspects that if he was elected pope, he would miss other key family events.
“I’ll get to say to him 'Thank you for still being here,'” Dolan said.
