[Mrs. Don-o]

I'm no expert on how this works canonically, but clearly it's VERY unusual for a Pope to go right over the local Bishop's head and smack down the offender without any extended palaver, dialogue, chit-chat and foot-dragging.

If the decree had Pope Francis' signature on it -- and apparently it did ---it's something he could have left in the filing cabinet til Christ comes again, if he didn't want to deal with it.

My guess is that it WAS "in the pipeline" on Benedict's initistive, but Francis looked it all over, checked on the details of the case himself, and then said, "This Melbourne priest is clearly out of line, and the local Bishop's not doing a dang thing,so --- bam, he's out."

So yeah, I'm giving Francis credit. Popes don't sign off on anything unless they want to.

[Salvation]

Pelosi’s bishop is in San Francisco now. Cordileone — a good one. Heart of a lion is what his name means.