A few years ago I was assigned to usher/greeter duties this one particular Sunday, and when I took up my station I realized that no one had brought out the bulletins for distribution. So, I hiked back to the sacristy to find them. As I entered I was greeted by the sight (and sound) of our pastor who was expressing to the deacon and adult altar servers…in very loud and painfully explicit terms…his displeasure with the bishop. Several months earlier the bishop had asked the priests in the diocese for their preferences for new parish assignments. Our pastor, for whom this new assignment would be his last before retirement, requested a parish near to where his very elderly mother lived. As it turned out, he was assigned to a parish that was not only not near his mother, but in another town about 50 miles away. (In fact, I heard that almost none of the priests were given the parishes they preferred.) I don’t like thinking that the bishop was “messing” with his priests just to annoy them, but he certainly created a bunch of ill will among them.
Not under current canon law as has been pointed out. But there are practices in some ancient European diocese of the rights of benefice, where the priest are to continue receive at least a portion of the parish income even after retirement. As such, the priests often cannot be moved by the bishop. While this practice died off slowly after the Reformation, it remains in the Church of England, I won’t be surprised if it continues in some obscure corner of the Catholic Church somewhere. To the best of my knowledge, neither the Catholic nor the Anglican practice did not cross the Atlantic.
The priest can say ‘no’ to the bishop but the bishop has the power to suspend him.
