It has been a very busy 2 weeks. In a space of 10 days Pope Benedict has appointed 3 Bishops to the United States.
Those include an auxiliary to the Archdiocese of Detroit, a New Bishop to the the Diocese of Evansville Indiana , now one to the historic See of St Augustine Florida the place where American Catholicism was first present in the current United States.
Whispers has the news and profile at Felipe, Upstate: Miami Aux to St Aug.
I was struck at first by the age. 65!!! Now it does say something of Benedict's pontificate that I would note that age. 65 is not such an uncommon age for a Bishop I suppose ,but for an Benedict trend of youthful appointments it's striking. He does have a Seminary background which will much needed for this area that will quite a big of Catholic growth.
Update- Very interesting about how the the New Bishop was part of Operation Peter Pan ( an operation by the USA that saved many Cuban youths from the Castro Regime). See Cuba’s Operation Peter Pan boys lead productive lives in U.S.
Bishop Felipe Estévez is a good man and I know, somewhat, and attended Father Isern's farewell mass at Our Lady of Lourdes (temporary parish for me in '09, between moves)...
ReplyDeleteAs for His Excellency, Thomas Wenski, he has left a lot, respectfully, to be desired within the Cuban American community, for a plethora of reasons.
However bad Favalora was on economic matters and the Cutie fiasco, he never alienated the strongest base of Roman Catholics in South Florida, from a political perspective.
He was, parenthetically, at a mass at my long time, troubled parish, St Catherine of Siena, in December...another long story, LOL