Pope Benedict Makes Major Bishop Appointment Today in USA- New Ulm

Rumors from Rome are that Pope Benedict is trying to get these vacant U.S. sees filled. Thank God. There is a issue of course that a Bishop is a needed Spiritual link for his Diocese and the flock in the Diocese.

To quote St. Ignatius of Antioch that is of the Apostolic age:

Since therefore I have, in the persons before mentioned, beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love, I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed. Do all then, imitating the same divine conduct, pay respect to one another, and let no one look upon his neighbour after the flesh, but continually love each other in Jesus Christ. Let nothing exist among you that may divide you; but be united with your bishop, and those that preside over you, as a type and evidence of your immortality.

On a more practical level, speaking as someone whose Diocese was vacant for some time, nothing gets done or to more precise your Diocese is in a holding pattern till the new Bishop shows up. Something that in this age of Benedict , that is 81, we do not need lot of to say the least.

Th e Pope has appointed Bishop-Elect John LeVoir presently pastor of St. Michael’s and St. Mary’s in Stillwater, MN to be Bishop of New Bishop of New Ulm, MN . Conservatives are doing cartwheels over this appointment this morning.

FOr more see Father Z's New Bishop of New Ulm, MN - Bp. Elect John Levoir and of course Whisper's initial New Ulm, New Bishop