UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Joseph O’Callaghan | Jul. 21, 2015 NCR Today
Robert Mickens’ column calling for a new way of choosing bishops is most timely. Although the Code of Canon Law of 1983 (c. 377) says that the pope freely appoints bishops, papal appointment is contrary to the church’s centurieslong tradition of the election of bishops by the clergy and people of the diocese.
Pope Leo I the Great emphatically affirmed that right when he declared: “The one who is to preside over all should be elected by all.” He added: “When the election of the chief priest is being considered, the one whom the unanimous consent of the clergy and people demands should be preferred. … No one who is unwanted and unasked for should be ordained, lest the city despise or hate a bishop whom they did not choose.”
The right of the clergy and people of the diocese to choose their bishops is hallowed by usage from the earliest times by canons enacted by church councils and by repeated papal affirmation.
Today, however, scarcely any vestige remains of that venerable custom. Rather, the pope, without the active participation of the clergy and people, appoints the bishops, choosing men known for their fidelity to the papacy and their doctrinal orthodoxy. The pope also exercises the right to transfer bishops, thereby encouraging the popular conception that they are merely branch managers of a centralized corporation whose primary allegiance will always be to the pope and not to the people they serve.
The transfer of bishops is so common that it seems like an embarrassing game of musical chairs. Bishops are seldom chosen to govern a diocese where they served as priests and thus are strangers to the priests and people committed to their care. Smaller dioceses are often viewed as stepping stones to more important prizes. In ancient times, the bishop was described as wedded to his diocese and his ring was the visible sign of that nuptial bond. Pope Callistus I described a bishop who transferred to another diocese as a “spiritual adulterer.”
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