ORANGE (CA)
Whispers in the Loggia
Over recent years, it’s hard to think of a national project on which Bishop Kevin Vann hasn’t been intimately involved.
From serving on the three-member USCCB team that oversaw the Stateside implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus and mediating the bench’s oft-delicate relations with the nation’s Catholic hospitals, to filing suit against the Federal government over the contraceptive mandate of the Obama administration’s sweeping health-care reform, the 61 year-old prelate has cris-crossed considerably more ecclesial turf than the sprawling 28 counties of Northwest Texas he’s overseen since 2005.
Now, however, the latest task comes via Rome… and given its centerpiece, well, it’s worth its weight in Crystal.
This morning, the Pope named the energetic head of the booming Fort Worth church to lead the diocese of Orange, succeeding Bishop Tod Brown at the helm of the 1.3 million-member fold in Los Angeles’ southern suburbs.
Barring an expedited succession in Chicago – the nation’s third-largest diocese, where Cardinal Francis George, 75, is undergoing a fresh round of treatment for a recurrence of cancer – the move will be 2012’s most significant handover of an American see in terms of size.
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