From this morning's Bollettino at the Holy See's website:
LE UDIENZE
Il Santo Padre Benedetto XVI ha ricevuto questa mattina in Udienza:
Em.mo Card. Marc Ouellet, Prefetto della Congregazione per i Vescovi.
Wouldn't you want to be a fly on that wall? Card. Ouellet is now the Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops. He took over last year from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re who was the mentor and patron of Cardinal Justin Rigali. Do you the Holy Father and Card. Ouellet discussed the meltdown in Philadelphia? And, how hemmed in are both men by the fact that, surely, much of the staff at the Cong. for Bishops consists mainly of men put in place by cardinal Re? The Pope is all powerful on paper only - as it should be. If you grant a man virtually unrestricted theoretical power, you had better find ways to restrict his exercise of it. To tackle the situation in Philadelphia as it should be tackled risks a break with a still-powerful cardinal who can cause much mischief and grief. That is asking a lot of two men for whom the meltdown in Philadelphia is distant but the powerful cardinals are down the hall.
Cardinal Rigali should do the right thing and just insist that his resignation, already on the Pope's desk because he is past the mandatory retirement age of 75, be accepted.
