Thank you for posting the comments from the blog thread. Cardinal Schonborn is, to a certain extent, in somewhat of a quandary. It is one that some future American bishops will also face. Take for example the situation here in Albany NY. By the time he retires, the bishop will have been serving 40+ years as head of this diocese. During his tenure, he has moved the diocese in a progressive direction. This has entailed scaling back by closing churches and schools, merging parishes and entrusting them to the leadership of Lay Ecclesial Ministers. Despite the papal decree on no female ordination, all candidates for the priesthood in this diocese are asked if they believe in women’s ordination. A “no” response is automatic rejection from service in this diocese. With 4 1/2 years to go, this bishop will entrust a secular run diocese to his successor. That bishop will be faced with an immense challenge, similar to that of Schonborn. He will have to gradually introduce orthodox Catholic teaching for fear of losing the existing Catholic congregation. It is a similar situation in nearby Rochester, NY.
Agreed.
For many bishops,
when they arrive in the new diocese,
it is as if they are a reinstituted monarch
who has been given the keys to his family’s palace and estate
after the Revolution
with its decades of deliberate neglect
and after being stripped of anything valuable.
The lonely monarch is then expected
to make the estate shine again,
despite an untrained staff
who actually prefer not having to any hard work
and who don’t actually like the idea
of the monarchy being reinstated.
Happily, these bishops have a trove of the richest treasure imaginable in the Truth and Grace God offers to them directly and through the Church.
But a daunting task, neverthless.