The attitude of the Vatican to the appointment of bishops is puzzling. It has let a situation develop where half the dioceses in Scotland are without a bishop, at a time when the Scottish Catholic community is urgently in need of good leadership.
And the Vatican has allowed the Diocese of East Anglia to remain without a bishop for nearly two years, a period brought to an end by the deserved promotion of Bishop Alan Hopes.
This is in sharp contrast to the alacrity with which the Bishopric of Rome was recently filled, following the retirement of Benedict.
Does this imply that the Vatican thinks that bishops – aside from Rome – are not really necessary?
That may be the conclusion ordinary Catholics draw, and it does correspond to the experience of Catholic parish life.
The parish priest is important to the average parishioner; so is the Pope. But where does the bishop fit in? Is he just a remote administrator, equivalent to the chief executive of a local authority or quango?
Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome, warned the bishops of England and Wales during their recent retreat of the danger of seeing themselves “as a mere manager or functionary rather than a disciple and an apostle”.
But it is not clear what he intended that to mean in practice. Cardinal Ouellet also admitted that Pope Francis had made him feel “uncomfortable” because his “sole criterion is Jesus Christ”.
During the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, bishops became over-cautious, risk averse. Pope Francis plainly wants that to end.
His informal remarks at a meeting with a group of Latin American Catholics suggest the time has come for a new approach. Catholics should take risks.
“They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder,” he reportedly told them. “This will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing. But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward. Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up.”
It is important not to see the present situation as a personal failing by individual bishops, who are trapped inside a system they did not invent.
How does an ordinary bishop “witness to Christ” if no one is paying much attention?
Some, such as the Archbishops of Westminster, have an automatic public platform; Archbishop Vincent Nichols has shown in an address this week how the Church can stand in solidarity with the poor and disadvantaged.
His example needs to be followed across the country, diocese by diocese. In that way bishops could become true leaders and shepherds again.
Despite Cardinal Ouellet’s warning about not becoming a mere administrator, bishops could learn from secular businesses that there are times when a review of management structures is a good way forward.
And they may also learn that customer relations matter.
If bishops have drifted away from the laity, sometimes giving the impression that they neither know nor care what the laity think, is that entirely the laity’s fault?
Is that good shepherding?