News and Features
Grace Under Pressure
By Cam Sylvester published Apr 30, 2010
Archbishop J. Michael Miller is something of an enigma. Why has the Vatican sent him to Vancouver? And what does Rome have in store for him next?
If Archbishop Michael Miller is piloting the car you’re riding in, never, ever ask if he’s been in love. Chances are he’ll blush, then sputter something like “I haven’t been asked that since I entered the novitiate” before almost veering into oncoming traffic. Miller, who replaced Archbishop Raymond Roussin in January 2009, is notoriously difficult to pin down. This makes him appear the consummate Vatican politico, hoarding his privacy like myrrh and wielding his irony like a sword. Yet others have a different view. “Miller has a great sense of humour,” the American Catholic commentator John Allen said. “He’s down to earth and he’s approachable. He’s not a theoretical prelate living on a self-made planet surrounding himself with flunkies.”
So which is the real Miller? And why did Pope Benedict XVI dispatch him from the pinnacle of the Roman Curia to this land of pagan sun worshippers, far from his beloved Italian cuisine? It would be hard to know if all you had to go on was Miller’s biography. Like Christ’s, it’s filled with tantalizing gaps: he was born (in Ottawa, in 1946), then he sort of disappeared; years later he became a priest and things really started hopping. But it would be easier to part the Red Sea than to get Miller to flesh out the details of his life; he is nothing if not private and politic.
People who know him paint a more nuanced portrait, one that suggests he’s destined for greater things than a midsize archdiocese on the west coast of Canada. What drives him? He’d have you believe it’s the power of his heavenly father. But in Miller’s case you might want to toss his earthly father into the psychic soup as well, along with a portion of ambition.
As in all heraldry, tradition defines an archbishop’s coat of arms, which is used as an official seal and as the principal identifying device for his see. Michael Miller’s can be studied in three parts
1. External Elements Patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and arch-abbots all use the green pontifical hat, with tassels hanging on either side. Archbishops use four rows; popes and cardinals get five. The double-traverse archiepiscopal cross stands behind the shield. 2. Shield The white area holds a book, symbolizing the word of God and recalling the task of education (Miller’s role as secretary of the Congregation for Education at the Holy See put him in charge of 1,200 universities and thousands of primary and secondary schools and seminaries); it also appears in the arms of Miller’s Congregation of St. Basil. The jagged line dividing it from the red section recalls Vancouver’s mountains. On the red field stand a dove, symbol of St. Thomas Aquinas (also on the arms of his former employer, the University of St. Thomas); a rose, representing Our Lady of the Rosary, patroness of the Archdiocese of Vancouver; and the dogwood, B.C.’s flower.3. Scroll Miller’s Latin motto means “To Serve the Truth.” He adopted it when he became a bishop in 2003. Pope John Paul II called it “an eloquent summary of the commitment that has marked his priestly life.”
