BELLEVILLE (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Amanda St. Amand
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/02/2006
Pardon the parents of eighth-graders across the Belleville Diocese for feeling anxious as they get ready for the confirmation of their sons and daughters. Few of them have met the man who will confirm their kids, but nearly all of them have read or heard something about him, and little of it has been good.
Bishop Edward Braxton got off to a bad start before he even got to Southern Illinois last year. He asked the diocese for renovations to the official bishop's residence. Not a good start in a far-flung diocese struggling, like others, with a shortage of priests, shrinking enrollment in schools and added expenses that stemmed from the priest sexual abuse scandal.