ROME
dotCommonweal
Robert Mickens October 9, 2014
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Pope Francis continues to mystify Vatican watchers by his episcopal appointments. On Wednesday he sent Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta, the number-two official at the Congregation for the Clergy, back to his native Spain to be the coadjutor bishop of Mérida-Badajoz. Benedict XVI had appointed the now sixty-six-year-old priest to the secretary’s post at Clergy and then ordained him archbishop in 2011.
Since the Spaniard has spent the past twenty-seven years working in this Vatican department, one could argue it was well beyond time for him to be moved out. But the timing of Morga’s transfer remains confusing. Pope Francis had reconfirmed him in his Vatican job only about a year ago, and it was believed he would have remained there for at least the completion of the five-year term to which Roman Curia officials are usually appointed. These terms are routinely extended, but Archbishop Morga’s was not even due to end until December 2015.
The Spanish prelate is a member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, sponsored by Opus Dei. He’s also been a longtime collaborator of Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the former prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy and one of the premier “Ratzingerians” in the Curia. When Pope Francis transferred the cardinal to the less important office of Major Penitentiary in September of last year, some said he was purging the Vatican’s most important offices of the former pope’s closest aides. Oddly, he moved out Cardinal Piancenza on the same day he reconfirmed Archbishop Morga.
So some might conclude that the Jesuit Pope has it in for Opus Dei, especially after recently removing an Opus Dei bishop in Paraguay. But that would be wrong. On Wednesday he also named an Opus Dei priest to be an auxiliary bishop in a diocese in Brazil.
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