[Ransomed]

“The gradualist approach may turn out to have been a mistake, but I don’t think so.”

The problem with the gradualist approach is that the longer you allow bad Bishops with their bad teaching (or lack of any teaching) to inflict themselves on a diocese the less the laity even know that something is wrong in their diocese. Is this guy saying that the areas with craptastic Bishops are just unlucky, and ultimately there is nothing the Church can do for years and years until the bad Bishop kicks it or retires?

Freegards

[old republic]

I think that Vatican I makes the popes power to appoint or remove Bishops quite clear. The power to remove or appoint bishops to manage the church is an integral part of Church government, and here is what Vatican I says about the authority of the pope to govern the church:

9. So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.