The Catholic Church has a habit of promoting bishops from smaller to larger dioceses. Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., argues in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review that this is bad policy (emphasis added):
It frequently happens that a bishop of a small diocese is moved to a large archdiocese when that see is vacant. Question: Is this policy good for the Church?
Some years ago, when Bernardin Cardinal Gantin retired as prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, he gave a final talk in which he stated that, in the early Church, bishops were not moved from one diocese to another. A bishop was considered married to his diocese in an indissoluble union, similar to the indissoluble union between husband and wife.
The present policy is not good for the Church because it promotes ambition among certain clerics who lust for the purple and the red, who position themselves in the most positive way so that they will be promoted to a higher position. Ambition to dominate others and to have power in the Church is certainly not the mark of a humble or holy man. The bishop is supposed to be first of all a holy man, for it is his task to sanctify and help work out the eternal salvation of the members of his flock. No one can give what he does not have. If he is scheming to get ahead in the clerical world, to become a bishop, then archbishop, then cardinal, he is not humble and not holy and should not even be a bishop.
The whole article can be found for a limited time HERE
Personally I could see promoting bishops in certain circumstances, but as a matter of policy I agree with the article. Treating the church like a corporate entity is generally a bad idea.
H/T Insight Scoop
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