Does Columbus get elevated to an archdiocese (from a diocese) with the merger? If YES, it wreaks of nepotism - Pierre rewarding his guy from the nunciature in DC, Fernandes, with an archbishop’s pallium at age 51…. There has never been nepotism in Holy Mother Church, right 🫣🙄🙄?
Seems unlikely. California and Texas are the only states with more than one province. Cities such as Pittsburgh, Kansas City (Missouri - confusingly the province for Kansas is based in their Kansas City), Buffalo, Orlando, and most relevantly Cleveland are dioceses and seem unlikely to be ever be otherwise. If neither Cleveland nor Columbus was ever promoted when Ohio was a Catholic hotbed, seems unlikely in this era of decline. And Ohio has six dioceses total, which means that if Steubenville is eliminated and Columbus were to be elevated, then either the Cincinnati or the Columbus province would comprise two dioceses only, which would be unusually small. That said, we know Francis is unpredictable.
With respect, "pernicious plot" is loaded language. That a bureaucracy, especially in these intensely materialistic times, thinks and feels primarily in terms of efficiency has nothing intrinsically to do with pernicious plotting. One could say, however, without risking greatly offending, that it doesn't put a premium on intangibles.
Don’t forget too, that Bishop Fernandez of Columbus was Cardinal Pierre’s secretary in the nunciature for a number of years. I wonder what role that plays in this…
To what extent might the view of some European clerics that Steubenville represents everything that is wrong with the American Church be influencing the push for a merger?
"The <insert church issue here> is seen now by many observers — including local clergy and Catholics — not as a matter of discernment, but as a political process, fraught with half-truths, unanswered questions, and foregone conclusions."
There is also a difference between "hearing" and "listening".
And synodality, I thought, meant more than listening -- do not forget about accompanying, walking with, etc. Though of course the definition seems to still be up in the air so perhaps I was mistaken...
> And synodality, I thought, meant more than listening
Even if it *only* means that a decision has already been made and the question is how to deliver the news in a compassionate way through someone who has earned trust and brought healing to relationships, so far the process has successfully completed step 1 which is "someone needs to earn their trust and bring healing to relationships so that it's possible to receive difficult news with an open heart", and then in a surprising move BURNED IT ALL DOWN AGAIN which is unfortunate.
The news will be “delivered in a compassionate way” via a canon lawyer who no one except other canon layers understand.
Despite his peerless pastoral, administrative, and ministerial/liturgical skills, my dear friend Bishop Paul J. Bradley is not a canon lawyer. Neither is Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus - He holds a doctorate in moral theology from the Alphonsian Academy in Rome.
That is why they dragged Kalamazoo Bishop Ed Lohse (Bishop Bradley’s successor in Kalamazoo) into this ecclesial debacle. Bishop Lohse is a brilliant canon lawyer who was taught in Rome by another great bishop/canon lawyer whom I know. I pray for and feel sorry for Bishop Lohse, getting dragged into a dumpster fire only ~ 9 months after being ordained a bishop and being used primarily for his canon law brilliance. Leave it to Cardinal Pierre to pit two Western Pennsylvania friends and great bishops in a closed cage dog fight. Synodality YADDA YADDA YADDA…
Christophe Cardinal Pierre Pierre obtained his Master of Theology degree at the Institut Catholique de Paris and his Doctor of Canon Law degree from the Pontifical Lateran.
Hence it is merely a canon law decision requiring a canon law justification….
In a merger, Fernandes also gets - despite the seemingly bombed out diocesan cathedral - The Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption in Marietta, OH. It is about a 20 minute drive from the bishop’s residence in Steubenville. Surely Pierre told his guy Fernandes about this “hidden treasure”….🙄
Does anyone else wonder why the Vatican seems to relieve many bishops of their duties on what appears to be lack of "loyalty", while at the same time it retains bishops who seem to be sources of deep scandal to the faithful. Francis complains and uses a slur against a certain kind of immorality among the clergy, but doesn't remove any of them. Yet with very little ground, he removes Bishop Strickland and now Bishop Bradley, and I'm sure there are many others. JPII and Benedict never seemed to remove bishops from t
(Now) Cardinal Pierre certainly has an integral role in “removals” I suspect.
Seeing his diplomatic/nuncio experience and the cultures in which he worked, I’m skeptical of how high synodality was on his list of priorities: Haiti, Uganda, and Mexico. None of these countries has a mid- or low-level power-distance index. Inertia, an immortal characteristic of the Church and its Curia, tells me working in the US won’t change his autocratic approach if it worked at his last 3 nuncio stops.
Disgruntled laity can begin providing their parish with food and other necessities rather than money so that none of it goes elsewhere. Just saying if the powers that be won't listen one can take active measures to thwart them.
It's tempting to read a lot from the details of this controversy. Steubenville has "...significantly more priests per capita than any other diocese in Ohio" (according to prior Pillar article "Bradley Out as Steubenville Administrator.") Those "extra" priests could be distributed across the entire Columbus diocese. But, although Columbus' +Bp. Fernandes doesn't want a merger, it seems other parties do.
+Cardinal Pierre (close to PF) has taken a firm hand dealing with his (mostly) conservative American bishops, and he was sent (and promoted) by a pope who openly dislikes Americans.
In America Pope Francis has removed (+Strickland, +Torres), retired unduly or early (Chaput, countless others) or attempted to humiliate (+Burke) many ordinaries, while promoting to Cardinal (+McElroy, +Cupich, +Gregory et al.), even at times even unduly (+Tobin), or otherwise supporting (Fr. James Martin SJ, Sr. Jeannine Gramick) those in the Church who share his progressive, disruptive and heterodox preferences regarding dogma and governance.
And now the news (credible rumors) of a possible further restriction on the Traditional Latin Mass, if not its actual abolishment.
I think it's common for people in their final years, as they weigh the balance of their lives, to become more loving, merciful, and patient, perhaps excessively so. Not Pope Francis, it seems. He runs the race in the manner of a revolutionary when the revolution is threatened. He governs like a man who does not doubt for a second the rectitude of his course in life, but who nevertheless aims to ram through changes that, had he more time, he might have sought to do more subtly or patiently.
+ Fernandes is very much in favor of the merger. He is ecclesially connected at the hip to Cardinal Pierre after reporting to him directly at the papal nunciature in Washington DC from 2019-2022.
I think the resistance to a merger among Steubenville diocese residents might have something to do with the decline of the city over the last few decades. There appears to be no renaissance there, as has happened or is developing in other rustbelt cities. Sometimes, for people looking for a win, the prospect of a further downgrade in regional status is just too much to bear.
There is a Renaissance taking place in Steubenville over the last 2-3 years especially with young couples with children (but not entirely as older couples are also moving here). In our small block or two in Steubenville - couples have moved here from El Paso, California, Florida, Colorado, St. Louis. Housing is cheap especially if you want to renovate an old house, land is cheap if you want to farm or homestead. There are thriving TLM, NO, Byzantine, homeschooling and farm schooling communities all working together to form a new kind of Catholic community. It's all happening under the radar but Bishop Bradley was exposed to it and was converted. Viva Steubenville.
I hear you, and it sounds like a beautiful thing. However, I suspect this "under the radar Catholic renaissance" still leaves a lot of people, including most diocese Catholics, adversely affected by the economic weakness, drug use, and crime that trouble the area.
Amazing how +Monforton the prodigal son was welcomed back to Detroit. Like nothing happened. Let’s make Bishop Bradley our villain.
In May 2018, the diocese discovered that the financial department had been mis-allocating funds from employee paychecks since 2004. Monforton started a forensic audit of the diocesan finances dating back to 2004. As a result. the diocese was forced to pay $3.5 million in employee taxes. The financial crisis forced Montforton to suspend work on Holy Name Cathedral.[8] Following austerity measures, the diocese balanced its financial standing. Monsignor Kurt Kemo, vicar general of the diocese, was forced to resign from his diocesan positions; in 2021, he pleaded guilty to felony theft, having stolen over $289,000 from the diocese for his personal consumption.[10][11]
All I know is from what I have read and heard (interviews), I would welcome Earl Fernandes as my Bishop (to my diocese ). Listen to this recent discussion on Square Notes
oh yeah, I don't see any evidence it has to do with the university at all.
Does Columbus get elevated to an archdiocese (from a diocese) with the merger? If YES, it wreaks of nepotism - Pierre rewarding his guy from the nunciature in DC, Fernandes, with an archbishop’s pallium at age 51…. There has never been nepotism in Holy Mother Church, right 🫣🙄🙄?
Wrong!
Seems unlikely. California and Texas are the only states with more than one province. Cities such as Pittsburgh, Kansas City (Missouri - confusingly the province for Kansas is based in their Kansas City), Buffalo, Orlando, and most relevantly Cleveland are dioceses and seem unlikely to be ever be otherwise. If neither Cleveland nor Columbus was ever promoted when Ohio was a Catholic hotbed, seems unlikely in this era of decline. And Ohio has six dioceses total, which means that if Steubenville is eliminated and Columbus were to be elevated, then either the Cincinnati or the Columbus province would comprise two dioceses only, which would be unusually small. That said, we know Francis is unpredictable.
With respect, "pernicious plot" is loaded language. That a bureaucracy, especially in these intensely materialistic times, thinks and feels primarily in terms of efficiency has nothing intrinsically to do with pernicious plotting. One could say, however, without risking greatly offending, that it doesn't put a premium on intangibles.
One of those intangibles, called out by Bishop Paul J. Bradley himself in the CRUXNOW article, is missionary discipleship.
More correctly in +Bp. Bradley’s words: “keeping the mission of the church “alive and well.”
Don’t forget too, that Bishop Fernandez of Columbus was Cardinal Pierre’s secretary in the nunciature for a number of years. I wonder what role that plays in this…
Great coverage as always!
Some way to reward a friend.. give him more work!
But does he get an archbishop’s pallium for “more work” and/or an elevation to archdiocese?
Probably not. Besides, titles are poor rewards for being handed a poisoned chalice like a horrendously handled merger.
Nepotism
Does the Franciscan University of Steubenville have any influence in the diocese?
mixed.
To what extent might the view of some European clerics that Steubenville represents everything that is wrong with the American Church be influencing the push for a merger?
It is more the views of of African cleric (a friend of Franciscan U) who became the head of a congregation in Rome who is pushing against the merger.
Surely there are US dioceses that could fit the merger bill and be supported by the priests.
I imagine diocesan merger talks are much like politicians. Ours is doing just fine. It's the OTHER ones that need kicked out of congress/merged.
*insert Airplane! quote*
"The <insert church issue here> is seen now by many observers — including local clergy and Catholics — not as a matter of discernment, but as a political process, fraught with half-truths, unanswered questions, and foregone conclusions."
Amen
The fact that they disagree with what you say, doesn't mean you weren't "heard."
The two are not synonymous.
There is also a difference between "hearing" and "listening".
And synodality, I thought, meant more than listening -- do not forget about accompanying, walking with, etc. Though of course the definition seems to still be up in the air so perhaps I was mistaken...
> And synodality, I thought, meant more than listening
Even if it *only* means that a decision has already been made and the question is how to deliver the news in a compassionate way through someone who has earned trust and brought healing to relationships, so far the process has successfully completed step 1 which is "someone needs to earn their trust and bring healing to relationships so that it's possible to receive difficult news with an open heart", and then in a surprising move BURNED IT ALL DOWN AGAIN which is unfortunate.
The news will be “delivered in a compassionate way” via a canon lawyer who no one except other canon layers understand.
Despite his peerless pastoral, administrative, and ministerial/liturgical skills, my dear friend Bishop Paul J. Bradley is not a canon lawyer. Neither is Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus - He holds a doctorate in moral theology from the Alphonsian Academy in Rome.
That is why they dragged Kalamazoo Bishop Ed Lohse (Bishop Bradley’s successor in Kalamazoo) into this ecclesial debacle. Bishop Lohse is a brilliant canon lawyer who was taught in Rome by another great bishop/canon lawyer whom I know. I pray for and feel sorry for Bishop Lohse, getting dragged into a dumpster fire only ~ 9 months after being ordained a bishop and being used primarily for his canon law brilliance. Leave it to Cardinal Pierre to pit two Western Pennsylvania friends and great bishops in a closed cage dog fight. Synodality YADDA YADDA YADDA…
https://columbuscatholic.org/bishop-earl-fernandes
Thanks. Not that it matters to anyone else, but I don't like that grin.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e8r9fq72bwczq7bx3jbx4/Earl_Fernandes_3.jpg?rlkey=51lu38l0svkuolwmud6wd1wlc&dl=0
Christophe Cardinal Pierre Pierre obtained his Master of Theology degree at the Institut Catholique de Paris and his Doctor of Canon Law degree from the Pontifical Lateran.
Hence it is merely a canon law decision requiring a canon law justification….
Amen
Very sad to read this news. What is the reason they're obviously so set on the merger?
Since Bishop Bradley was fired, I can assure you the answer is NOT (in his words, not mine): “keeping the mission of the church “alive and well.”
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2024/02/in-course-change-new-steubenville-leader-sees-no-need-for-merger/
Excellent article to read to supplement this article.
Synodality for thee, but not for me.
Steubenville now has one saint and ecclesial martyr - Most Rev. Paul J. Bradley +
Wry smile.
In a merger, Fernandes also gets - despite the seemingly bombed out diocesan cathedral - The Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption in Marietta, OH. It is about a 20 minute drive from the bishop’s residence in Steubenville. Surely Pierre told his guy Fernandes about this “hidden treasure”….🙄
https://stmarysmarietta.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_St._Mary_of_the_Assumption_(Marietta,_Ohio)#
Does anyone else wonder why the Vatican seems to relieve many bishops of their duties on what appears to be lack of "loyalty", while at the same time it retains bishops who seem to be sources of deep scandal to the faithful. Francis complains and uses a slur against a certain kind of immorality among the clergy, but doesn't remove any of them. Yet with very little ground, he removes Bishop Strickland and now Bishop Bradley, and I'm sure there are many others. JPII and Benedict never seemed to remove bishops from t
heir posts.
(Now) Cardinal Pierre certainly has an integral role in “removals” I suspect.
Seeing his diplomatic/nuncio experience and the cultures in which he worked, I’m skeptical of how high synodality was on his list of priorities: Haiti, Uganda, and Mexico. None of these countries has a mid- or low-level power-distance index. Inertia, an immortal characteristic of the Church and its Curia, tells me working in the US won’t change his autocratic approach if it worked at his last 3 nuncio stops.
Disgruntled laity can begin providing their parish with food and other necessities rather than money so that none of it goes elsewhere. Just saying if the powers that be won't listen one can take active measures to thwart them.
It's tempting to read a lot from the details of this controversy. Steubenville has "...significantly more priests per capita than any other diocese in Ohio" (according to prior Pillar article "Bradley Out as Steubenville Administrator.") Those "extra" priests could be distributed across the entire Columbus diocese. But, although Columbus' +Bp. Fernandes doesn't want a merger, it seems other parties do.
+Cardinal Pierre (close to PF) has taken a firm hand dealing with his (mostly) conservative American bishops, and he was sent (and promoted) by a pope who openly dislikes Americans.
In America Pope Francis has removed (+Strickland, +Torres), retired unduly or early (Chaput, countless others) or attempted to humiliate (+Burke) many ordinaries, while promoting to Cardinal (+McElroy, +Cupich, +Gregory et al.), even at times even unduly (+Tobin), or otherwise supporting (Fr. James Martin SJ, Sr. Jeannine Gramick) those in the Church who share his progressive, disruptive and heterodox preferences regarding dogma and governance.
And now the news (credible rumors) of a possible further restriction on the Traditional Latin Mass, if not its actual abolishment.
I think it's common for people in their final years, as they weigh the balance of their lives, to become more loving, merciful, and patient, perhaps excessively so. Not Pope Francis, it seems. He runs the race in the manner of a revolutionary when the revolution is threatened. He governs like a man who does not doubt for a second the rectitude of his course in life, but who nevertheless aims to ram through changes that, had he more time, he might have sought to do more subtly or patiently.
+ Fernandes is very much in favor of the merger. He is ecclesially connected at the hip to Cardinal Pierre after reporting to him directly at the papal nunciature in Washington DC from 2019-2022.
Thanks. I think that information only cements my view above.
// a pope who openly dislikes Americans //
Good trivia question. Nah, too easy.
I think the resistance to a merger among Steubenville diocese residents might have something to do with the decline of the city over the last few decades. There appears to be no renaissance there, as has happened or is developing in other rustbelt cities. Sometimes, for people looking for a win, the prospect of a further downgrade in regional status is just too much to bear.
Maybe in part. But likely, I suspect, *only* in part.
There is a Renaissance taking place in Steubenville over the last 2-3 years especially with young couples with children (but not entirely as older couples are also moving here). In our small block or two in Steubenville - couples have moved here from El Paso, California, Florida, Colorado, St. Louis. Housing is cheap especially if you want to renovate an old house, land is cheap if you want to farm or homestead. There are thriving TLM, NO, Byzantine, homeschooling and farm schooling communities all working together to form a new kind of Catholic community. It's all happening under the radar but Bishop Bradley was exposed to it and was converted. Viva Steubenville.
I hear you, and it sounds like a beautiful thing. However, I suspect this "under the radar Catholic renaissance" still leaves a lot of people, including most diocese Catholics, adversely affected by the economic weakness, drug use, and crime that trouble the area.
Amazing how +Monforton the prodigal son was welcomed back to Detroit. Like nothing happened. Let’s make Bishop Bradley our villain.
In May 2018, the diocese discovered that the financial department had been mis-allocating funds from employee paychecks since 2004. Monforton started a forensic audit of the diocesan finances dating back to 2004. As a result. the diocese was forced to pay $3.5 million in employee taxes. The financial crisis forced Montforton to suspend work on Holy Name Cathedral.[8] Following austerity measures, the diocese balanced its financial standing. Monsignor Kurt Kemo, vicar general of the diocese, was forced to resign from his diocesan positions; in 2021, he pleaded guilty to felony theft, having stolen over $289,000 from the diocese for his personal consumption.[10][11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Monforton
All I know is from what I have read and heard (interviews), I would welcome Earl Fernandes as my Bishop (to my diocese ). Listen to this recent discussion on Square Notes
https://youtu.be/ABb6OYhJMOc?si=mlqOiKpf-a7xGfNq
What does Fernandes’ taste in sacred music have to do with Ohio diocesan ecclesiology or synodality toward the faithful of Steubenville?