The Church doesn't toss Bishops out of the Church, most of the time, they get "promotions" to "important" fact finding missions, and titular posts where they can do no harm.
I floated this idea last night with Lee: Could this be a case of "Promoveatur ut removeatur"?, i.e., "to promote in order to remove"?
The idea of a promotion to obscurity had crossed my mind as well. However, it seems odd that the Holy Father would do that with a position that he himself held less than a month ago.
That's the first thought that crossed my mind. I'm sure Pope Benedict is more than aware of the moral cesspool in San Francisco, and perhaps this is a way of moving out Levada and getting a tougher bishop in SF.
Have faith, people. The Church will NEVER teach error, and it appears that Pope Benedict has made it clear that he will not necessarily be a missionary pope, but an activist from Rome. I don't think Levada will be more than a rubber stamp for the Pope, who knows his way around the CDF, himself.
Yes, this very well may be the case. For a fine example of this practise from the last pontificate, I refer you to the career of Edmund Cardinal Szoka.