Process/Timeline for Bishop Replacement

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Maximilian75

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The bishop of my diocese will be turning 75 within the year, meaning that he will submit his retirement to the Pope. Does anyone know what happens after this/who will assign my diocese a new bishop/how long the process will take?
 
This amazing website will let you see all of the vacant Sees. Wow, there is one Diocese that has been vacant since 1935!! Fascinating stuff.

The USCCB will advise Vatican, the Pope does the final appointing of a Bishop. In the mean time you will have an administrator.

http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/
 
Bishops are required by canon law to submit their resignations when they turn 75. The Pope is not required to accept the resignation immediately. As one might expect, those with health problems will be replaced first. The Papal Nuncio in the US advises the Pope on new bishops.
 
It’s not the Bishops’ Conference. The Apostolic Nuncio for the country consults the local bishops and churches and compiles a shortlist of 3 candidates. The Congregation for Bishops in Rome then makes a recommendation to the Pope that he accepts or rejects. The timeline varies widely.
That’s the standard process. Some dioceses / regions have special provisions. For example, in some European dioceses the local cathedral chapter elects the bishop - subject to final approval by Rome.
 
Well, I can say from experience that it might take a year or two for your bishop to be replaced once he retires. That’s what happen when our last bishop retired. We had a vacant seat for a year or two.
 
Our Archbishop turned 75 years old, so once the pope accepts his resignation we will be receiving a new one.

It’s quite interesting!
 
In my Diocese a new bishop was appointed within 8 months after our former bishop was transferred. In other dioceses it can take longer. Hopefully you won’t have to wait too long.
 
The diocese may have just declined so much in population that it wasnt nessecary
 
The “local bishops” is another name for the Bishop’s Conference of blah blah.
 
The local bishops are members of the conference, but it’s technically the Nuncio, not the conference, who submits a list of names to Rome :).
 
@twf gave a good answer. I’ll just add that—although it can vary and it’s really anyone’s guess—in the U.S., most appointments lately have been in the 9–18 months range.
 
In my diocese, I started off here under Delaney. Bishop Delaney was named bishop on July 10, 1981, but wasn’t actually consecrated bishop until September 13, 1981. He had been sick for several years, and had Kevin Vann had been appointed coadjutor bishop on May 17th, 2005. Vann’s ordination as assistant bishop was originally scheduled for July 13, but when Bishop Delaney died on July 12th (just shy of age 71), they made a small change to the already-scheduled ceremony to consecrate him bishop, rather than assistant bishop. (Time lapse: 1 day)

During all this time, the Bishop of Orange County (CA) (Bishop Tod David Brown) reached age 75 in November of 2011, and put in his letter of resignation. His resignation was accepted on September 21, 2012, and Vann was installed as Bishop of Orange County on December 10, 2012. So there were about 10 months between Brown’s reaching age 75, and when he stepped down from his duties, and then there were an additional two and a half months before his successor was installed.

Meanwhile, back in Fort Worth, I want to say Vann left sometime in September/October of 2012, shortly after his announcement? I can’t remember for sure. But Fort Worth remained vacant for about a year until Olson was named successor on November 19, 2013, and he wasn’t actually ordained as bishop until January 29, 2014. (Time lapse: 13 or 14 months? And then another 2 months?)

So-- that gives you an amazing range of “it can just be a day” if the machinery is already in place and the plane tickets are already booked, and someone dies unexpectedly-- or it can be “a year” between someone reaching that birthday and his successor being installed-- or it can be “more than a year” if someone gets transferred to fill a major gap, and then try to find a replacement for the minor gap left by the shuffle.

Which is kind of weird, because I would think someone’s 75th birthday is one of those things you can plan for in advance. 🙂
 
thats what I was thinking… but thn again a Catholic buerocracy is still a buerocracy and a slow one at that
 
The bishop of Richmond, VA, USA, died August 17. His replacement was only named last week on December 5. He won’t be “installed” until early January. He seems like a good and holy man.

I always thought the term “installed” was odd in that context, BTW. Do bishops come with installation instructions?
 
As an MC at my parish, I was installed at a Mass, and so were my fellow Masters of Ceremonies… but im not sure why that word is used either.
 
From the Latin installare. To put into place, to establish.

It’s related to the word insediare, which means “to seat someone in office”.

Also, as a side note, “ordo, ordines”, which basically means class/station/rank, is where we get the word “ordination” from.

So you can ordain someone a bishop (give them the rank of bishop) or install someone a bishop (establish them as the head of their jurisdiction). So a regular priest gets ordained a bishop and installed a bishop in the same ceremony, but the bishop of Diocese A, upon being transferred to Diocese B, only gets installed, but not ordained, because he already possesses that class/station/rank.
 
I’d think it would be more efficient if the local clergy elected the bishop, as per ancient tradition (and as still the case in certain European sees, though limited to the cathedral chapter, and in Rome itself, though in the form of the cardinals who are technically clergy of Rome), even if ratification from Rome was still required…it would have to speed up the process.
 
In our diocese we had one bishop die suddenly and his replacement wasn’t named for about a year if memory serves me right. The replacement bishop recently retired and his replacement was named before the retirement took effect. I guess the timing depends upon the circumstances.
 
fredystairs said:
I guess the timing depends upon the circumstances.
Click to expand...
That certainly makes sense. When someone is due to retire, the nuncio is able to start the process even before the retirement takes place. When a bishop dies suddenly, then the task is to fill a vacancy that wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen. It takes time to do all the due diligence and find the right candidate. My sense is that they don’t just have a pool of priests they draw from who they think would make good bishops. They look at who is the right man for this particular diocese.
 
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