Posted on 03/24/2004 8:25:21 AM PST by CatherineSiena
Dallas, Mar. 23 (CWNews.com) - What happens when an American bishop, deeply tainted by the sex-abuse scandal, refuses to resign?
Today we found out.
After a 5-year battle of wills with Bishop Charles Grahmann of Dallas, the Vatican has in effect conceded.
Today the Vatican announced that Bishop Joseph Galante has been appointed to head the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey. At first glance that looks like a routine appointment. But those who know the full story realize that it is anything but routine.
Five years ago Bishop Galante had his own diocese, in Beaumont, Texas. But in December 1999 he was given what appeared to be a promotion, to become coadjutor bishop of Dallas.
At the time, Bishop Grahmann had been seeking an auxiliary bishop, to ease his work load in Dallas. Instead the Vatican gave him a coadjutor-- an assistant who would be expected gradually to take over his duties, while he prepared for a graceful exit.
Naturally the Vatican did not announce that Bishop Grahmann was expected to resign. No such announcement was necessary. It was obvious. When the Vatican appoints a coadjutor bishop, it can mean only one of two things: either the incumbent bishop in that diocese is in ill health, and needs a colleague to help shoulder the pastoral burden; or the bishop is expected to resign, and let the coadjutor take his place. Bishop Grahmann was, and is, a reasonably healthy man.
Moreover, Bishop Galante's appointment came at a time when it was abundantly clear that the Dallas diocese needed new leadership. A Texas jury had just assessed the diocese for legal damages of over $100 million in a sex-abuse case. (The payment was eventually negotiated down to $31 million-- still by far the largest legal settlement paid by an American diocese up to that time.) Some of the most prominent laymen of the Dallas diocese had approached the bishop, demanding his resignation-- again, a move that was shocking at the time, although it has become remarkably commonplace in subsequent years.
As columnist Rod Dreher recounted, in June 2003 article for Catholic World Report, those Dallas lay leaders thought that Bishop Grahmann had agreed to step down after the coadjutor bishop was appointed. Bishop Galante would later reveal that he had the same understanding: he was leaving his Beaumont diocese in the expectation that he would soon be the Bishop of Dallas-- a considerably larger diocese.
But once the coadjutor bishop was in place, Bishop Grahmann announced that he had other plans. He said that he had every expectation of remaining the Bishop of Dallas until reaching the regular retirement age of 75-- which will not happen until 2006.
So the struggle of wills began. The Vatican obviously wanted Bishop Grahmann out. Bishop Grahmann didn't want to go.
As time passed, relations between the bishop and his coadjutor soured. In November 2002, Bishop Galante openly questioned why Bishop Grahmann did not remove the cathedral rector, Father Ramon Alvarez, after the rector was slapped with sex-abuse charges. Last June, the coadjutor told the Dallas Morning News that he had very little influence within the diocese-- a situation clearly at odds with his role as coadjutor-- and bluntly said: "I will probably be moved."
He was right. He has been moved. And Bishop Grahmann remains, despite the obvious wishes of the Vatican, and despite the taint of scandal that still hovers over the Dallas diocese.
In December 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned his duties as Archbishop of Boston because of the sex-abuse scandal there. But from all indications, it seems clear that Cardinal Law wanted to resign, and finally convinced a hesitant Vatican to accept his resignation. So that episode did not answer the question of what would happen if a bishop refused to resign, despite prompting from Rome.
Now we know.
I will also be anxious to see what Wick Allison, publisher of "D" magazine and a prominent local Catholic has to say. He led a group of influential Dallas Catholics in a petition to the Nuncio to remove Grahmann.
He failed, obviously. Catholics have to put up with whatever the Vatican chooses to foist on them.
Why Desdemona. You sound like a Calvinist. ;O)
Are you saying the Pope can't replace a bishop?
You know, it is possible to be a good Catholic without a strong bishop.
Yes, it is possible. It is also possible for heretical bishops to lead souls off the road to salvation.
However,try as I do,I only find that after His Apostles fled,denied Him,fell asleep on Him,doubted Him,all but one accompanied the Resurrected Christ til He was carried into heaven. And the missing one,the one who betrayed Him? It seems,he removed himself.
Could there be a message there?
The deeper I get into the scriptures,the more I pray and the more I learn about our Catholic Faith,the more I thank God for our Pope and the Papacy and the Primacy of Peter.
Fortunately, the cardinals are a lot more likely to please God than to please AmChurch.
The refusal of the likes of Grahmann to step down is yet one more evidence of the apostasy and schism of AmChurch. Maybe the next conclave will provide a Leo XIV to supplement the work of Leo XIII on the heresy of "Americanism" in which our AmChurch leaders regard "democracy" as more important that doctrine and discipline and fulfillment of their vows of OBEDIENCE.
Not in our lifetime. Not in God's lifetime.
Of course it is.
If I was president of a company, and I sent a VP to a regional sales job which already had a regional sales VP, do you think the resident VP would get the message?
And, if he didn't, that I would ask him to step down?
Galante was humiliated by Grahmann. Rome was humiliated as well.
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