Musical cathedras

Two episcopal appointments today worth noting: Pittsburgh's Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh will now be archbishop of Washington, D.C. Wuerl was originally sent in the late 1980s from Rome to Seattle to rein in Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen there, whom then-Cardinal Ratzinger judged too welcoming of gays. Wuerl has always been a little tainted, though; the U.S. bishops were so outraged by Wuerl appointment as coadjutor (co-bishop, basically) in Seattle that they practically forced Rome to move him. He will be replacing one of the few moderates left among the U.S. bishops, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. It will be interesting to see if B16 give Wuerl the red hat for his service.

The second new appointment follows the (ahem) abrupt resignation of Joseph Imesch of Joliet, Illinois. He was due to turn 75 in June, but the outrage over his response to sex abuse allegations, mentioned several times here, surely accelerated his retirement. Usually it takes a year or so for a bishop's resignation to be accepted. The whole thing is too bad, too: Overall Imesch was a fairly openminded bishop, the champion of the U.S. bishops' pastoral on women that the Vatican put the kibosh on. Unfortunately he's going to be remembered for his fairly callous response to accusations of sex abuse in his diocese. He'll be replaced by James Peter Sartain, now bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas. Don't know anything about him yet.