UNITED STATES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Written by Peter Smith on Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Roman Catholic laypeople should have a role in choosing their bishop, according to Nicholas Cafardi, dean emeritus and professor of law at Duquesne University.
The whole process should be handled with more transparency, said Mr. Cafardi, who formerly chaired the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Review Board, which advised bishops on their response to sexual abuse. In fact, he said the abuse crisis itself can partly be traced to an opaque, insider process of picking bishops.
Mr. Cafardi writes in a recent article in U.S. Catholic:
‘Pope Francis says that he wants a special kind of bishop for our church—he wants “shepherds who smell of their sheep.” Let us take our Holy Father at his word: Who knows how the sheep smell better than the sheep themselves? No one. So then why not let the sheep … have a significant say in the choice of our bishops.’
The current process is based on insider recommendations from bishops, up the chain of command to the papal nuncio (diplomatic representative) to the United States and to the pope himself. Priests and some influential and wealthy lay people have an advisory role, but not the lay people as a whole, he writes.
When a candidate is named, he added, the Vatican circulates questions to a select group of those who know him, asking his stances on such issues as same-sex marriage, women priests and abortion — an agenda that “has given us so many culture warrior bishops,” Mr. Cafardi writes. He wonders if, under Francis, such questions as whether the man has a concern for the poor or drives a fancy car will also be asked.
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