Pope Francis formalizes his firing power

By Joel Connelly
Seattle PI
November 7, 2014

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/11/07/pope-francis-formalizes-and-starts-exercising-his-firing-power/

He is the supreme pontiff and ultimate authority in the Roman Catholic Church, but Pope Francis has formalized his firing power.

Under a new Vatican edict, when he considers it “necessary,” the pope can ask a bishop to resign.

Pope Francis has already removed bishop.

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst was sent packing from his post in Limberg, Germany, after spending millions in luxury renovations to his residence and diocesan headquarters. He was nicknamed the “bishop of Bling.”

Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano was removed after offering a pastoral home to a Pennsylvania priest accused of sexual abuse and delivering personal denunciations of his fellow bishops in the South American nation.

Francis has also taken ultraconservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke off the Congregation of Bishops, which recommends new appointments to the hierarchy and is apparently getting ready to send Burke packing from his job as head of the Vatican’s highest court.

Burke has fired back with critical statements. “At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the church is like a ship without a rudder,” he said last month.

In Vatican-ese, the new edict defines the Holy See’s firing power:

“In some particular circumstances, the competent authority can consider it necessary to ask a bishop to present his resignation from pastoral office, after having made known the reasons for the request and listening carefully to the reasons, in fraternal dialogues.”

Joshua McElwee, in National Catholic Reporter, clarified the language, writing: “The ‘competent authority’ in such an instance would seem to be only the pope, who is ultimately the only person responsible for appointing bishops.”

The Vatican’s treatment of troublesome bishops has depended on whether they were in favor.

In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI abruptly retired Australian Bishop Bill Morris, after Morris has speculated in his diocesan newspaper that ordination of women might be a means by which the church deals with its shortage of priests.

Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was hit with a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation that the Archdiocese of Boston transferred known or suspected pedophile priests from one parish to another. Law was a close friend of Pope John Paul II.

Law was spirited out of Boston to a sinecure in Rome, as archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Marie Maggiore. He maintained membership on Vatican commissions until retiring at age 80.  He continues to live in Rome at the Basilica.

Pope Francis may soon face a firing decision.

The Vatican has been quietly investigating Bishop Robert Finn of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese. Finn pleaded guilty, in 2012, to a misdemeanor for failing to notify law enforcement of a priest suspected of producing child pornography. The priest, Shawn Ratigan, was later given a 50-year sentence.

If Finn were applying for employment in his diocese, he would be disqualified by dint of the misdemeanor conviction.

Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa was dispatched to Kansas City in late September, where he interviewed more than 50 priests and lay people including Finn’s critics and defenders. Such a “visitation” is unusual and has been a prelude to removal.

Cardinal Burke will apparently be shuffled off to a ceremonial post supervising the Knights of Malta.