Shaw on the Conference

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Nov 16, 2006

Russell Shaw gives a useful sketch of the U.S. bishops' conference through its successive re-engineerings in the November issue of Crisis. The piece is helpful for understanding the issues behind the down-sizing currently underway. Shaw, moreover, has a deft touch in dealing with the Church's more public embarrassments. I liked the finesse he pulled off in this graf:

The main hope of conference insiders is that that vision will be forthcoming when Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, USCCB vice president and widely regarded as the brightest member of the American hierarchy, succeeds Bishop Skylstad as president two years from now.

The reader will have noticed that epithets are bestowed upon only one of the pair concerned. Shaw's insider time as Information Director for the conference was not wasted.