Vatican keeps a tight grip on the bishoprics
In his determination to implement his policy of “restoration”, Pope John Paul II, throughout his 26-year pontificate (the second longest in the history of the Catholic Church), assiduously used the appointment of bishops throughout the world as a key mechanism to achieve his objective.
His aim was to “restore” the Church to where it had been before the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), reforms that alarmed him, not least because they created what the late Peter Hebblethwaite, one of the very best Vatican-watchers, memorably called “a runaway church”.
