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	Pittsburgh May Have to Wait on Filling Bishop's Post By Ann Rodgers Pittsburgh Post-Gazette March 7, 2007 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07066/767365-85.stm The pope named bishops for two U.S. dioceses yesterday, one of whom was a possible candidate for Pittsburgh. Auxiliary Bishop Kevin Farrell, 59, of Washington, D.C., will lead the troubled Diocese of Dallas. It became open in July, when Bishop Charles Grahmann reached the retirement age of 75. The other appointment was to the hurricane-ravaged Diocese of Lake Charles, La., where a two-year vacancy was the longest in the U.S. Pope Benedict XVI sent the Rev. Glen Provost, 67, a pastor from the Diocese of Lafayette, La. Pittsburgh has been open since May, when then-Bishop Donald Wuerl was sent to Washington, D.C. Many analysts now believe Pittsburgh will wait longer because it is in excellent shape and auxiliary Bishop Paul Bradley is an able administrator who has been running the diocese until a new bishop is named. "The expectation now is June for Pittsburgh. But, as we've seen, anything can change at any time," said Rocco Palmo, whose well-sourced blog on the Catholic church, Whispers In the Loggia, predicted Bishop Farrell's appointment to Dallas. Mr. Palmo compared the efforts of the papal nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Pietro Sambi, to a surgeon doing triage. "Whatever diocese is bleeding most goes to the top of the pile," he said. Dallas was a crisis case. It was the largest diocese without an auxiliary bishop, and had a bizarre recent history. In 1997, a jury found the diocese "grossly negligent" in its handling of a serial pedophile priest, Rudy Kos. He is serving three life terms and the diocese paid 10 victims $31 million. In 1999, the Vatican sent Bishop Joseph Galante as a coadjutor to replace Bishop Grahmann. But Bishop Grahmann refused to retire. The situation escalated as Bishop Galante publicly criticized Bishop Grahmann in 2002, prominent Dallas Catholics petitioned for Bishop Grahmann's removal in 2003 and in 2004 the Vatican gave up and gave Bishop Galante a diocese in New Jersey. "There was a lot of mismanagement and lack of oversight," Mr. Palmo said. "You have a polarized clergy, you have a diocesan staff that is weary, tired of having a divided diocese. Bishop Farrell has to come in and be a unifier. And that is something he has done well in Washington." A native of Ireland, he studied in Spain and did campus ministry in Mexico -- giving him a flair for Hispanic ministry. His first work in the U.S. was as a fund-raiser for missions in Latin America. He has a master's in business administration from the University of Notre Dame. And he is known as a kind man, with great personal warmth, who made phone calls to sexual abuse victims to see how they were. "He is non-ideological, he won't start doctrinal fire fights. He is straight down the line on church teaching, but blending it with a gentle, affable Irish presence," Mr. Palmo said. The Rev Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C., said Bishop Farrell effectively ran that archdiocese under the globe-trotting Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, now retired. "He is a first-rate administrator," Father Reese said. "He'll make things happen. He's not afraid of making tough decisions." If triage is the model, several sees may be ahead of Pittsburgh -- three of them cardinalatial. Detroit, open since 2005, has money woes; New York, which will open in April, has dissension among its priests. Baltimore is in superb shape, but its 76-year-old cardinal has health issues. And little Birmingham, Ala., open for nearly two years, is home to the independent Catholic cable network EWTN. (Ann Rodgers can be reached at arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.)
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