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October 22, 2008
The Humor of hierarchy
Auxiliary walks into the bishop's office in the morning and asks: "Everything ok today?"Coadjutor walks into the bishop's office and asks: "How are you feeling today?"
Via Fr. Schnippel, who heard it from Archbishop Pilarczyk of Cincinnati at the press conference announcing the appointment of his coadjutor.
For those slow on the hierarchy, auxiliary bishops are just helpers, while coadjutor bishops have the right to succession at the death or retirement of the ordinary bishop. For anyone who's interested in the way the bishop-making process really works in contemporary America (hint - don't look to the skies for a dove bearing a bandarole inscribed with the name of the new bishop), I strongly recommend a book by Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church. Lots of non-leftists like to dislike him, but he's a good sociologist who writes very clearly for a general audience.
The anecdotes in the book are certainly dated - it was published in 1989 - but the structure it describes is unchanged. I read it because I'm a convert and had a good excuse for not knowing these things, but anyone who has ever blogged about why the pope should just dismiss a bishop should read it. Anyone who has ever wondered why the Pontifical North American College is an important place should read it. Anyone who has ever wondered why the bishops thought they could get away with stonewalling in the last decade should read it.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at October 22, 2008 6:38 AM