Lending some credence to the information I had the other day that a new archbishop may be appointed for Boston soon, the Boston Herald reports that the search has heated up. The article says the leading contender depends on what the Vatican wants him to do and how soon they want him here. If they want him to come in and take over cleaning house from Bishop Lennon, then Archbishop Harry Flynn of Minneapolis is seen as the frontrunner because he cleaned up the Diocese of Lafayette and heads the bishops’ sex-abuse committee. If the goal is to wait until things have settled down, then other names have been advanced too.
The one thing you can count on when trying to predict who will be named as a bishop is that conventional wisdom means nothing. Unless you actually see the terna, the list of three names the nuncio forwards to the Congregation for Bishops, then anything said is speculation.
