✣Highlights from the week online
Mega-dioceses are part of the problem At his website, Taylor Marshall suggested one little-discussed reason for the abuse crisis: the growth of the “mega-diocese”. It used to be the case, Marshall wrote, that a diocese was small enough for a bishop to oversee. But today, he said, “the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has 1,117 priests and 4,392,000 baptised laity. One bishop cannot oversee more than 1,000 priests. One bishop cannot be shepherd for 4.3 million people. For reference, the entire population of England in AD 1086 was 3.6 million. Imagine if all of England in AD 1086 had only one bishop. Ridiculous.” In the 16th century, the pace of episcopal appointments slowed; from 1870 under Pius IX, it slowed even more. It is particularly extreme in the United States, Marshall said.
