Levada in line for key job at Vatican (SF Archbishop)

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/11/MNGDACNA051.DTL

San Francisco Archbishop William Levada is the new pope's leading candidate to become the chief doctrinal watchdog for the 1.1 billion member Roman Catholic Church, according to Vatican sources and several media reports.

The Chronicle reported on May 4, the day after Levada became the first U. S. bishop to have a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI , that the pontiff was considering the San Francisco prelate for the head of the Vatican Congregation to the Doctrine of the Faith.

Now, Time magazine reports on its Web site that a "senior Vatican official" says the Levada appointment is "a done deal."

"...Catholic author and former Vatican Radio staffer David Gibson said the Levada appointment "makes sense."

"Popes pick people they know and trust,'' said Gibson. "Archbishop Levada has shown himself to be a loyal lieutenant, and he is not going to take the spotlight away from Benedict."

Gibson, author of "The Coming Catholic Church -- How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism," said Benedict wants to keep an eye on dissident theologians and liturgical innovation in the United States.

"America is seen as the vanguard of much of the experimentation that concerns Pope Benedict," Gibson said. "

and I cannot say that Levada is necessarily a bad choice. He brings some "new blood" to the Vatican; something that is desperately needed! :D

:kick:

Until we here in the US can see the direction that is taken.



New blood doesn't mean good things will happen.

about the excommunicating of pro-abortion Catholic politicians he is very careful and steeped in doctrinal method and balance, but comes down on the side of interference in the State by pastel shading until of course it is the liberals in the corner.

Another sign of Ratzinger's agenda that is not only Church discipline but "moral action" alliance with the right wing on select issues, social justice be damned. When all American bishops except the rabid were uncomfortable with the "letter" Levada is much more sympathetic than deferential in working up almost an encyclical style defense of the intervention in the American election that held such disastrous consequences for the world.

He is also older and up there which is small comfort in the Vatican edging closer to making an American Pope, another disaster and ever something to avoid in world history when the dominant world power gets one of "it's own" into the papacy. It matters less whether a Pope chosen as a concession to world power(not population) holds a particular ideological loyalty than that it happens at all.

Am getting a whiff of a very destructive era for the papacy but the trends are not revealed in fact yet. Funny when Levada writes of the danger of compromise. There is a BIG blind spot when some of the last Popes fear compromising with secular populism yet hobnob with, and give active support to, the most selfish nutcases of the right supra power establishment. A very HUGE intellectual and moral blindspot which the previous Benedict exhibited as well.

Who would Jesus exclude, indeed. Well, He never included the institutions and authorities some popes have favored over the people of the beatitudes.

Which had to file for bankruptcy recently because of child moletations suits?