{"id":400,"date":"2008-01-24T08:33:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T08:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/episcopal-varia.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T08:33:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T08:33:14","slug":"episcopal-varia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/episcopal-varia.html","title":{"rendered":"Episcopal Varia"},"content":{"rendered":"

(No, not “Episcopal” as in ECUSA…they have enough problems<\/a>. Small “e” on this one. )
\nBishop Edward Braxton of Belleville has issued an apology for using funds designated for the missions and evangelization to purchase new furnishings for the chancery. <\/a>
\nThe LA Chancery has been sold. <\/a>
\nJohn Allen has a long, interesting profile of Cardinal Law in Rome – 5 years since his resignation from Boston. <\/a><\/p>\n

Law prepares assiduously for meetings, these sources said, poring over preparatory materials and drawing on his network of international contacts. Since he\u2019s based in Rome, he can participate on a more regular basis. (The normal pattern is for Roman cardinals who belong to a given dicastery to attend its regular business meetings — twice a month in the case of the Congregation for Bishops — while cardinals elsewhere sometimes come only for annual plenary assemblies.)
\nYet no source could point to a single appointment since Law\u2019s arrival in Rome in 2004, whether to a diocese in the United States or elsewhere, or in the Vatican itself, that seemed unambiguously to bear Law\u2019s fingerprints.
\nOn bishops\u2019 appointments, these sources said, Law has earned a reputation for being \u201cobjective,\u201d which, in Vatican argot, means that he does not appear to be angling to get his friends appointed. Rather, they say, he looks at the names recommended by the nuncio, or papal ambassador, and offers a candid assessment.
\nLaw is one of four Americans who sit on the Congregation for Bishops, the others being Levada, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, and Cardinal Francis Stafford of the Apostolic Penitentiary. By most accounts, Rigali and Levada exercise greater influence; both Archbishops Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., and Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee, for example, are former auxiliaries of Rigali from St. Louis, while Levada was instrumental in sending his friend and seminary classmate George Niederauer to San Francisco.
\nVatican sources say that even absent the sex abuse crisis, Law\u2019s influence would probably be diminished today because his longtime friend, Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, is no longer the private secretary to the pope.
\nMore broadly, church-watchers say, it\u2019s difficult to find evidence that Law is using his role to shape events in the American church. At least in Boston, Cardinal Sean O\u2019Malley has said publicly that he does not consult with Law prior to making decisions. Sources in the Boston chancery who spoke to NCR<\/i> confirmed that assertion, saying they\u2019ve never seen O\u2019Malley contact Law prior to taking an important step.
\nLaw\u2019s friends insist he doesn\u2019t aspire to wield long-distance control.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s moved on,\u201d one said. \u201cHe\u2019s aware of what\u2019s happening [in America], but he\u2019s not trying to manipulate things.\u201d
\nThat, of course, is a friendly perspective. Critics often argue that whatever Law\u2019s actual influence, the fact that he sits on the Congregation for Bishops, the Vatican office responsible not only for appointing bishops but also for correcting their misconduct, is testament to an enormous bit of unfinished business — the absence of any mechanism for holding bishops accountable for mismanagement in the same firm fashion that priests are now held accountable for abuse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, pray for Archbishop Buechlein of Indianpolis, who has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.<\/a>
\nOh, and then there’s the whole SLU basketball coach – Archbishop Burke business. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(No, not “Episcopal” as in ECUSA…they have enough problems. Small “e” on this one. ) Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville has issued an apology for using funds designated for the missions and evangelization to purchase new furnishings for the chancery. The LA Chancery has been sold. John Allen has a long, interesting profile of Cardinal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nEpiscopal Varia - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/episcopal-varia.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Episcopal Varia - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(No, not “Episcopal” as in ECUSA…they have enough problems. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}