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Carole Mikita ReportingAnticipation is building among members of the Catholic faith in our state as they await the news of a new bishop.
The hardest part of this for church leaders and the faithful is not knowing when the Vatican will announce the name of their new leader. It was last December when their former bishop received a call for a new position.
Bishop George Niederauer said farewell to the Salt Lake Diocese he had led for more than 10 year's earlier this year. He became the new Archbishop of San Francisco and the search to find his replacement began. Hopes were high in August.
Susan Northway, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, August 2006: "There's much of the process that goes on between the Apostolic Nuncio and Rome and our bishops and other people here, and so we're somewhere within that process."
The process began in Salt Lake with the choosing of a group of consulters. Then each bishop in the province -- which includes the cities of Reno, Sacramento and San Francisco -- submits names. After a vote, Archbishop Niederauer sends a list to the Apostolic Nuncio, or Pope's representative in Washington, D.C.
He conducts an investigation, then narrows the list to two or three names and sends materials about them to the Congregation for Bishops in the Vatican. That group votes. A cardinal then submits the final list to the Pope. The choice is his.
Monica Howa-Johnson, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City: "We have no idea where we are in the process because that's not the way the Vatican works. They don't tell us, ‘You're on step ten and we're getting to step eleven, so, you're close.' So we have to just wait and pray and hope that it's going to be the right person for the job."
If their new leader is already a bishop, the diocese will participate in a special mass of installation. If he is not, that mass will be his ordination. Either way, that will happen weeks after his arrival.
Monica Howa-Johnson says she feels sure the list will be narrowed to someone who can relate well to the large number of Hispanics in the diocese and speak their language, and can also represent the Catholic Church in a diverse religious community.
