Replies

>> The list you are showing has those who have “reached the age.” If I am not mistaken, there are several Dioceses that are “still open” and the Holy Father received a request for removal due to poor health only last week <<

There are seven vacant sees, but none of them are archdioceses.

>> I have the impression that the outgoing (Arch)Bishop has had significant input into his successor. <<

I would think it only natural that the evaluation of subordinates by outgoing bishops has strong influence on the recommendations of the nuncio.

>> Who is engineering that is not known to me, but it could be the man in Philadelphia [Regali!] since Raleigh was one of his. <<

From Regali to Raleigh? LOL! Yes, I believe Regali is a good assistant in identifying solid bishops.

>> It has been speculated that several Archdioceses that were historically “Cardinatial Sees” may not be so anymore. The absence of a Cardinal from Texas, for example, is glaring with its huge Catholic population. <<

I can’t see Baltimore, the mother diocese of the USA, being denied a Cardinal, nor New York, even though it is very small since Washington to its own Cardinatial see. I can’t see Washington losing one since it was just established in the last few decades; if it did, it would be taken as a sharp rebuke to Paul VI. The other five “Cardinatial Sees” are the five largest archdioceses in the nation. The next biggest is Newark, a shrinking diocese literally overshadowed by New York.

Maybe someday, Houston-Galveston will be, but it was only recently elevated to archdiocese, is still smaller than the dioceses of Brooklyn, Rockville Center and Orange, has very inconsequential suffragan dioceses, and oversees a very modest number of parishes (150). Texas isn’t all that Catholic; about 5 million out of 20 million Texan residents are Catholic. There’s 65 million Catholics in America.