One small step for a bishop, but how giant a leap is it to archbishop?
Bishop Thomas Rodi moves to an adjacent see and picks up a pallium in the deal.
By the way, he retains administrative ties as the apostolic administrator of Biloxi until the Congregation for Bishops finds somebody (anybody?) to cover on the Mississippi coast.
Rock gives you the usual goods on the appointment, including a list of nineteen dioceses tapping impatient feet for new shepherds:
Biloxi now becomes the nation’s ninth vacant diocese, joining (in order of length) Little Rock, St Thomas, Des Moines, New Ulm, Knoxville, Green Bay, Charleston and Juneau.
In addition, ordinaries serving past the retirement age still await successors in (again, by order) Detroit, New York, Omaha, Kalamazoo, Syracuse, Fort Wayne-South Bend, New Orleans, Wilmington, Pueblo and Allentown.
For those keeping score, that’s almost ten percent of the Latin rite dioceses and archdioceses in the nation. I wonder how the Church as a whole is doing?
* Careerism in the Episcopacy
