In Oakland, liftoff eve

Rocco Palma
Whispers in the Loggia
v Mary 2, 2013

As veterans will know, long ago our crowd in Oakland dubbed their Cathedral of Christ the Light the "Space Egg" ...and come Roman Noon tomorrow, the East Bay's postmodern seat will receive the third bishop of its less than five-year year existence.

According to a memo issued this morning by the apostolic administrator of the 600,000-member diocese – Seattle's emeritus Archbishop Alex Brunett – the successor of the now-Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, named to San Francisco last July amid a firestorm, is to be revealed Friday morning and, in a remarkably quick turnaround, will take office 22 days later, on May 25th at 11am.

"I am sorry for the time line of this announcement and the tight schedule," Brunett told the Oakland clergy, explaining that "these choices were made by the Apostolic Nuncio."

According to Whispers sources, however, the bishop-elect won't simply be installed, but ordained. In other words, Pope Francis' pick for the NorCal diocese isn't already a bishop... and, ergo, long-standing house custom dictates that names of priests being elevated are not reported on these pages prior to the action of the Holy See.

That said, it takes some memory-jogging to recall the last time a simple priest was named to lead a church of Oakland's size. As the thought would have it, the last one was...

...well, as always, stay tuned.