I’m curious what the bishops
feel about incardination.
They have a process set up whereby a diocesan priest can move from one diocese to another diocese. He needs to have a bishop say, “I’d like to take him in,” (incardination) and his current bishop needs to say, at the same time, “I’m going to release him.” (excardination)
This is a way of avoiding having transient priests. All clergy, from deacons on up, are attached to a diocese at every moment.
So, what if a priest’s motive is “I want to do x and my bishop won’t allow me to do x but I could do x if I went to the Diocese of Such-and-Such?” And what if the new bishop sez, “Come on over,” but the old bishop says, “That’s not a compelling reason, and I can’t spare you anyways. You’ve gotta stay.” So then the priest would be in a situation where he would have to explain to a canon lawyer through the proper channels of recourse why it’s a reasonable request to get his excardination letter.
The point I’m trying to make is-- the USCCB is perfectly happy to say, “Y’all are being harsh, limiting citizens’ ability to migrate across national borders!” but at the same time, I’m curious how easy or how lenient they are in allowing the clergy who are in obedience to them to migrate (physically and spiritually) into obedience under a brother bishop.
