Pope Francis has made several appointments over the past few weeks, some of them of a very high profile. One is the nomination for Santiago de Chile – where Bishop Celestino Aós Braco OFM Cap is apostolic administrator sede vacante et ad nutum sanctae sedis, in place of the embattled Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati. The second is for Washington, DC, where Archbishop Wilton Gregory succeeds Cardinal Donald Wuerl as head of the US capital archdiocese.
If the situation in DC is fairly – if euphemistically – described as fraught, the one in Santiago is unequivocally an unholy mess. In both cases Pope Francis decided on what, according to the old rules and customs, we may characterise as a safe play. In the case of DC, the safety is in the person. In Santiago, the safety is in the kind of appointment.
