New Bishop for Lansing

A new bishop was nominated for the Diocese of Lansing (where I hail from) today - he'll be installed on April 29. Bishop Earl Boyea. Michigan native, dean of studies at Sacred Heart Major Seminary for a decade (the decade before I arrived there) - details are available at American Papist - the blog, incidentally, of a former Sacred Heart classmate of mine who quotes another former Sacred Heart classmate of mine.

I dug up a book review published in First Things that was written by Bishop Boyea, and found this paragraph very encouraging:

Fr. Cozzens discusses at length what he views as attacks on the integrity of the priest as a human being, among which he includes the tension between the strict teachings of the Church and the more pastoral disposition of priests’ own consciences. He quotes Fr. Bernard Häring on the problem created “when religious authorities demand all too much submission to an obscure package of doctrines.” To be sure, I have felt at times, and I suppose most priests have felt at times, a tension between Church teaching and my own pastoral sensibilities when working with the real problems of people. I take that as a signal that I need to understand the teaching more thoroughly. Let me say it quite flatly: my presumption is not that I am right but that the Church is right. Christ made no individual promise to me that the Spirit would lead me into all truth; he did not give to me the keys of the kingdom. These are promises made to the Church, the Body of Christ, of which I am a member not as an equal but as a servant.

Perhaps even more encouraging, at least in its concreteness, is this paragraph (written, incidentally, before he was appointed bishop in 2002):

Fr. Cozzens says that the Church is indifferent to the “data” regarding problems such as the vocation shortage, the graying of the clergy, rampant homosexuality among priests (more on that later), the birth control dispute, and calls for married priests and women in ministry. Manifestly, the Church is not indifferent to these questions. At every level of the Church’s life, they are endlessly discussed. Just because the Church does not change its teachings or practices does not mean that such questions are being ignored. Might it not be at least seemly for those who agitate for change to entertain the possibility that the Magisterium understands the problems as well as they do, or even that the Magisterium is right and they are wrong about how these problems are to be understood and addressed?

God give him the grace to be a good shepherd!