Swiss Abbot Urges Change in How Bishops Are Selected

A leading Swiss abbot is calling for a change in how bishops are selected, saying that the nomination process should include greater local input, and he wants bishops and theologians to join him in pressing for the change. ‘We are faced with serious systemic problems in our church. For me, as a canon lawyer, solving these systemic problems has absolute priority, as our other problems can only be solved if the structures are consistent and the procedures transparent,’ Benedictine Abbot Peter von Sury of Mariastein said in an interview with the Swiss Catholic press agency Kipa/Apic last month.” By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, Austrian correspondent for London-based weekly Catholic magazine The Tablet, in National Catholic Reporter

The present Vatican process for selecting bishops also recently was challenged by priests and laity in Nigeria where they rejected the pope’s recent bishop appointment. Among reports of this protest was the Jan. 13, 2013, article, Ahiara Catholic Faithful Protest, in the Nigerian newspaper Daily Independent.

Voice of the Faithful® has long been an advocate of greater local lay input in bishop selection. VOTF promulgated the Primer: Organizing Lay Input in Bishop Selection during its 10th Year Conference this past September in Boston, Massachusetts, and maintains a Lay Input In the Bishop Selection Process page on its website.