That said, Martino added that he "clearly" wasn't "prostrate with illness" and, freed from the burdens of office, was "feel[ing] fine" at the hourlong session.
To handle the bulk of the diocese's affairs, the freshly-named apostolic administrator, Cardinal Justin Rigali, tapped Msgr Joseph Bambera, a well-regarded local pastor, as his delegate. A former chair of the diocese's Presbyteral Council and member of the Board of Trustees of the Jesuit-run University of Scranton, Bambera notably comes to the post from outside the current diocesan curia.
While the temporary caretaker of the Scranton church reappointed the bulk of Martino's eight vicars to continue in their current capacities on an interim basis, one of two figures to not make the cut was Msgr Kevin McMahon -- the highly-regarded moral theologian Martino recently recruited as his episcopal vicar for "Catholic Doctrine, Identity and Mission."
Before the Scranton post was created for him last month, the priest of Wilmington served in St Louis as resident counsel on bioethics and health care issues to another prominent "lightning rod" prelate: Archbishop Raymond Burke, who was transferred to Rome last year as the global church's "chief justice."
Grist for the mill.
I didn’t think the transfer of Msgr McMahon was a particularly encouraging sign.