Scarlet fever update. (Odds & Ends).

"Congratulations. You will never eat another bad meal nor hear the truth again for the rest of your life." So said someone to a priest who had just been named a bishop. That was a long time ago, when many bishops were chauffeured about in limousines that rivaled the wheels of CEOs and high government officials. People kissed their royal rings and routinely called them "Your Excellency" or "Your Grace."

I don't know if bishops eat bad meals today, but, along with people everywhere, they sure are hearing the truth. Newspapers, magazines, radio, and television all have focused like a laser beam on bishops. The media is telling the world some truths that some bishops already knew.

It's not pretty or pleasant.

What bishop ever dreamed that such a turn of events would judge his individual job performance or define the bishops' collective character?

Priests who desperately wanted to become bishops were often characterized as having "scarlet fever," even though the color commonly reserved for bishops is purple. These bishop wannabes manifested certain common characteristics. As seminarians they usually studied in Rome at the North American College. After ordination they often became private secretaries or administrative assistants to their bishops. Or they might get appointed to a position in the diocesan chancery office. They almost always wore French cuffs, even long after they went out of vogue, and never were seen-without the Roman collar. Collecting the title monsignor was de rigueur. Being named rector of a seminary was yet another frequently helpful credential to collect on the bishop juggernaut.

But these things in and of themselves did not a bishop make. Someone with scarlet fever also had to have a sponsor, an advocate who was an already-named bishop. That sponsor would champion the cause of a bishop wannabe, much the same way the postulator champions the cause of sainthood. However, unlike the road to canonization, there were no devil's advocates.

I wonder if the recent chain of events, initially triggered by the Boston Globe articles, has miraculously cured some bishop wannabes of their scarlet fever? Hearing truth, particularly the truth of the past several months, is such hard and painful work, no wonder some bishops have tried to deny or dodge it. Now when the apostolic nuncio calls a priest to ask him if he would accept ordination to the episcopacy, he might hear a lot more "no thanks" to his invitations to the bishopric.

So who will be the upcoming Catholic bishops in the United States? Their future work has certainly been made more difficult for them, albeit unintentionally, by some of this country's current bishops. What characteristics and charisms will our future bishops need to possess? And will the secretive process of selecting bishops be reformed?

Maybe, just maybe, our bishops of the future, like Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, will have come to understand that "silence always favors the oppressor and never the oppressed."

PETER GILMOUR ([e-mail]) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.