My guess is it's going to be someone like Chaput out of Denver who has the bigger city experience and the administrative knowledge and will to clean up a massive mess. The pastoral stuff doesn't mean quite so much when faced with the disaster LA is. Someone from outside of the California structure will have no favorites within the archdiocese, either. And, don't forget, this is a red hat in six years. Chaput is about the right age for that.
That being said, we can speculate all we want. What's interesting here is that a sitting CARDINAL has basically been told his resignation is going to be accepted. How often does that happen. If we just hang on, there's only a handful of the lefties remaining. It's the ones who are stuck in the 60's liturgically and are not left leaning in other ways that are starting to be an issue.
Unlikely that it will be a current Archbishop and Chaput wouldn't stand for Mahony telling him what to do for a year. Also, considering the diametrically opposed history those two have concerning EWTN and Mother Angelica, naming Chaput as Coadjutor could result in a bloodbath.
**My guess is it’s going to be someone like Chaput out of Denver **
The dimocrats would not like that, would they?