That Time Cardinal Cupich Wrote Back to Me
Eight years on, looking back at the letter I wrote Cardinal Cupich in gratitude, and the kind reply he offered back, as we both look to transitions
Almost one year ago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, submitted his resignation. You may notice that he is still actively serving as archbishop of Chicago. This is because, in the Catholic Church, bishops are canonically required to offer their resignations to the pope at the age of 75 — the age Cardinal Cupich reached early last year — but the pope rarely accepts them immediately. Typically, he takes a few months or years to consider the next steps for a diocese and align the various appointments that will cascade through the country’s dioceses.
I was thinking of Cardinal Cupich, and his transition to emeritus status sometime in the next few years, because I am wading through a transition period myself — and its roots reach back to my time working in the archdiocese earlier in his term as archbishop.
In March 2017, near the second year of my employment in an Archdiocese of Chicago parish school, my wife reached the due date for our first child. After 40 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy and a lengthy, complex labor and C-section, Katherine gave birth to our first child, and we named our daughter Lucy Karen.
One of the things that made the whole thing a tidbit less daunting was the twelve weeks of paid leave that my job afforded me, thanks to a policy enacted by Cardinal Cupich at the end of the previous school year. In the back of my head, knowing that we intended to try to start our family soon, I was delighted to know I’d have this time and space without lost wages. My wife and I took our twelve weeks of paid leave together and had the chance to learn parenthood together.
Little did I know that we’d discern our preferred path was for me to become a mostly stay-at-home parent for Lucy, that I’d continue this with two more children, and that this version of things would go on for eight years (though I imagined it could be ten or twelve years before all our kids reached elementary school age).
It’s been a time of lots of joys and consolations, many days and nights of exhaustion and fatigue, and gradually mounting artsiness and the creeping-in of burnout, especially the last year or two. I want to reflect on that more next week, but for now, I wanted to reach back to the time when this all started. Eight years after I wrote an open letter of gratitude to Cardinal Cupich in March 2017, I will return to full-time work now in March 2025. And there’s a sort of loose but fitting symmetry to it for me.
With Cardinal Cupich’s resignation submitted, I delight in knowing this major milestone in his leadership has been such a cornerstone for me, my daughters, and my family. I hope he has a few more years of faithful leadership in him, but as I “resign” this role as a stay-at-home parent and his resignation rests in a file in Rome, I find a cyclical, looped-back-together resonance with my old “boss” again. And I’m glad to reshape this old note I wrote back to him — and the response he offered back to me!
Cardinal Cupich,
My name is Dan Masterton, and I am the Campus Minister at St. Benedict Preparatory School in the North Center neighborhood of Chicago. I didn’t go into work today... or yesterday... and I won’t go in tomorrow... I am home on paid paternity leave with my wife, Katherine, and our newborn daughter, Lucy Karen.
I’m sure in your many years ministering to so many people and families, you’ve met lots of children, and maybe even held your fair share of babies. But have you ever had the chance to really hold a baby? To just stare plaintively at the little face of a person so young? To just get to marvel at their searching gaze, their myriad wrinkles and skin rolls, their complete helplessness? And without the pressure of the next meeting or phone call bearing down on you?
If not, I’d enjoy bringing Lucy to meet you sometime. As I was relishing this very thing the other day, I felt a peace and simplicity I’ve only previously felt when praying the Liturgy of the Hours with the monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Staring deep into the gaze of this baby invites me into a monastic timelessness. Even as the whirr of traffic, the hubbub of the sidewalks, and the roar of the L continue around me, I have moments when I’m totally unaware of it all as I hold my resting baby daughter. (Additional feelings arise when she’s restive rather than resting.)
I have long felt a strong and clear call to marriage, to family life, and to fatherhood, and I have been especially excited for it ever since I married my wife, promising her earnestly that I am going to be a great dad. My gifts and personality correspond well to fatherhood, and my God-given easy-going way disposes me well to dealing with the anxieties that pregnancy brought and that parenthood brings. But there was something more that helped strengthen and solidify my peace and humble confidence in approaching fatherhood: I knew, that for at least twelve weeks, my full-time job would simply be learning how to be a dad.
Now, a lot of it is a how-to crash course, a whirlwind of repetition in the musts of baby care: diaper and clothing changes, soothing a baby, gently putting her down to bed, reading her cues, etc. It has been invaluable to keep pace with my wife in learning those necessary tasks. Additionally, my wife and I have identified “dad jobs”: dad burps her after feeds; dad swaddles her before bed (because he has learned to do it very well); dad does the baths. I love how these special moments are always mine to share with my daughter, and I get to practice and enjoy them regularly and repeatedly like it’s my job.
Most importantly, I’ve had the privilege of getting to realize my fatherhood immersively. Sure, I had the butterflies-in-the-stomach excitement at the positive pregnancy test, at the wonder of the ultrasounds, and at the sound of her heartbeat – but after each of those moments, I went back to work and spent the majority of my time on the job. Now with my daughter born, having the time and energy – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – to focus primarily and thoroughly on being a dad helps move me deeper. Fatherhood isn’t just a concept or the topic of small-talk when people greet me; being a dad is the evolution and development of my vocation as a husband and family man. Immersing in these first moments of fatherhood, and doing so temporarily free from splitting myself between the constituencies of work and home, makes this reality a cultivated, internalized thing, a part of me and my life and my identity and who I am.
So when people see the three of us or come to visit, and they ask about our leaves from work, I tell them that I have twelve weeks paid to spend with my family. And when they express their surprise or envy or delight, I tell them, “Thanks, Cardinal Cupich.”
So to you,
and everyone in our archdiocesan offices
and administration
who worked to make this privilege of working for the Church a reality,
from a father at home
with a beautiful baby daughter
and a wife who enjoys tackling parenthood together,
thank you.
God bless,
Dan Masterton
(father of Lucy)
I posted this letter on May 18, 2017 and sent a copy to the archdiocesan contact for Cardinal Cupich.
About a week later, a letter came back to me, and it was a deep consolation and joy to read.
