Your gift counts double until 5/31: $25,719 to go in our Easter Campaign. Please help now!
 Off the Record

Who Will Be the New Bishop?

By Diogenes (articles ) | May 11, 2003 10:43 AM

-- so Anthony Trollope titled the first chapter of Barchester Towers. The goods at stake in the Holy See's choice of a new Archbishop of Boston, however, go beyond sleepy Barchester's concern with Sunday traveling and marrying-off widows. The Globe interviews the usual suspects about candidates and qualities.

"When you ask people what type of person they want, the answer is Jesus Christ with an MBA from Harvard, and that's not all that helpful," said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, editor of America magazine, a Jesuit weekly. But Reese and other observers say that for Boston, the Vatican will look for a bishop with strong administrative experience, a clean record of honoring his vow of celibacy and removing abusive priests from ministry, an unstinting doctrinal orthodoxy, and perhaps a patron in Rome.

Let's go shopping:

a) strong administrative experience
b) a clean record of honoring his vow of celibacy
c) a record of removing abusive priests from ministry
d) an unstinting doctrinal orthodoxy
e) a patron in Rome

Not a bad list, as lists go. That said, to employ Fr. Reese's categories, it would be good to see less emphasis on the A&E criteria (the Harvard MBA) and more high scorers on B-C-D (imitatio Christi).

An appeal from our founder, Dr. Jeffrey Mirus:

Dear reader: If you found the information on this page helpful in your pursuit of a better Catholic life, please support our work with a donation. Your donation will help us reach five million Truth-seeking readers worldwide this year. Thank you!

Easter Campaign:
Progress toward our Spring 2013 goal ($25,719 to go):
$80,000.00 $54,280.55
32% 68%
Sound Off! CatholicCulture.org supporters weigh in.

All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!

There are no comments yet for this item.

Think with the Catholic Leaders: Subscribe to Catholic Culture Insights Newsletter
Donate to Support this Site: Your contribution will be put to good work.
Tour the CatholicCulture.org Site
Shop Amazon to Raise Money for Catholic Culture

Recent Catholic Commentary

The sad decline of self-government 2 hours ago
That impromptu exorcism again 6 hours ago
The Mystery of the Spirit 21 hours ago
Against a Facile Assurance of Salvation, the Need for Mystery 22 hours ago
Making Sense of Society: The Ebook May 21

Top Catholic News

Most Important Stories of the Last 30 Days
Pope strongly supports call for reform in religious life CWN - May 8