[NYer]

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Rev. Robert Morlino was installed as the Diocese of Madison's new bishop Friday.

About 700 people attended the ceremony at St. Raphael Cathedral in downtown Madison, including 41 bishops and 148 priests, diocesan spokesman Bill Brophy said.

Morlino, 56, served four years as Roman Catholic bishop of the Helena, Mont., Diocese.

Pope John Paul II appointed him to replace William H. Bullock in Madison. Bullock resigned last year when he turned 75, as required by church law.

Morlino, a native of Scranton, Pa., serves as chairman of two committees in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. One deals with matters surrounding permanent deacons' ministry. The other helps bishops respond to moral and theological questions about health care situations in their dioceses.

He was one of eight American bishops last year to sign a call for a plenary council to discuss the church's sexual abuse crisis. He said he will focus on recruiting new priests in Madison.

Morlino is the diocese's fourth bishop in 57 years.

The Madison diocese covers 11 counties in south central Wisconsin, which has more than 257,000 Catholics.

The Helena diocese has about 67,000 Catholics.

[NYer]

The issue of mandatory celibacy for priests was openly challenged two weeks ago for the first time in a quarter century by a group of 163 priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

I take it the question of 'mandatory' celibacy surfaces from time to time. We, and the priest petitioners, already know the pope's unbudging stance on this policy. Why are they rattling their sabres? What do they hope to achieve?

[RobbyS]

Rome has been following the strategy of letting liberal bishops "age out,"and replacing them with more reliable men. The problem with this, as I see it, is that the new men are often not up to the challenge when they realize how deep the rebellion is. The pattern has been: Rome says; the bishops try to enforce only to meet resistenters and then try to strike a deal with the dissenters. That certainly seem to have been what Law did. As Morlino says, says: pragmatism won't do.

[Salvation]

A bump for Bishop Murlino.

[Salvation]

**He was one of eight American bishops last year to sign a call for a plenary council to discuss the church's sexual abuse crisis. He said he will focus on recruiting new priests in Madison.**

This is wonderful news for the Diocese of Madison!

[sinkspur]

The Madison diocese has 99 priests to serve 135 parishes in 11 counties, down from 127 priests in 1997, said spokesman Bill Brophy. The diocese projects the number of priests will dip to 34 by 2025, Brophy said.

Thirty-four priests to serve 135 parishes (and that assumes no growth of Catholics in the diocese)?

When lay Catholics in the United States have to settle for a Communion service instead of the Mass two out of four Sundays, they'll begin to vote for a solution to the priest shortage with their checkbooks.