According to Damian Thompson, the Holy Father has been ill-served again by his Nuncio in Britain and by the Congregation for Bishops in his latest nomination for bishop in the UK.
If Cardinal Pell is promoted,
we might get some decent bishops
April 30th, 2010
I see that Cardinal George Pell of Sydney had an audience with the Pope today. I don’t want to raise false hopes, but if he were made Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops we might not end up with such uninspiring appointments as Archbishop Peter Smith to Southwark.
I don’t want to be nasty about Archbishop Smith: he’s good on the Today programme, which is more than can be said for any other Catholic bishop except +Vincent (Mons. Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster).
But I’d like to know what aspect of his record in Cardiff qualifies him to take over the bigger job of Southwark. Perhaps Archbishop Sainz, the Nuncio, can tell us – he’s a great Smith fan. Or Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, whose appointment to the Congregation for Bishops was greeted with groans by all supporters of the Benedictine reforms. (Incidentally, a senior Catholic source reckons Archbishop Nichols wanted the irrepressibly jolly +John Arnold for Southwark.)
Let’s keep our hopes up. If Cardinal George Pell takes over the Congregation for Bishops, everything will change. He’s spent a lot of time in England, has lots of English friends and knows exactly how talented and loyal our bishops are.
What is keeping Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re from retiring? After all, he turned 75 in January 2009. Why has the Holy Father not replaced him yet?
Since he was the Sostituto (deputy Secretary of State for internal affairs) for years under John Paul II, he is known to have great influence among Curial middle managers who actually move the bureaucratic levers in the Vatican and certainly not a Ratzingerian in any way. Yet he managed to escape public scrutiny for his role in the Wielgus nomination and the Williamson case - in both of which , as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, he had primary responsibility for thorough backgrounding to provide to the Holy Father! As he was against the lifting of the excommunication for the FSSPX bishops but had to sign the decree in his capacity as prefect of Bishops, it looked fishy then, especially after the disparaging remarks he made about the revocation in the hearing of media representatives on the day the decree was announced.