Report: CUA President O'Connell to become bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend?

The Tower, the "Independent student weekly of The Catholic University of America" is reporting as a front-page exclusive today that CUA President David M. O'Connell "has been mentioned as a replacement for bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend ... John M. D'Arcy" (who is six months past retirement).

Their sources for the rumor include a CUA student who works at the USCCB, several students who have heard CUA department members discussing it, and even one student who "said she had overheard O'Connell directly discussing his upcoming departure." O'Connell has served as the CUA president for almost ten years, "the second longest tenure of a president in CUA history."

To balance the issue, it should be noted that The Tower has a reputation of being a thorn in almost everyone's side who isn't a writer for The Tower. But despite the paper's reputation for being contrary (it is, after all, the student paper), the pieces they've assembled do seem to fit together in this case. And this despite the fact that their sources for the story are, essentially, a bunch of work-study kids. Frankly, it shouldn't be a surprise that they've got the drop on this one.

Rumors of O'Connell's departure have been circulating on the CUA campus for several months at this point, and the destination diocese would make use of his experience in administration and Catholic education. There is, after all, a certain "bastion" of Catholic higher-level education within the diocesan territory.

Final thoughts. It is next to impossible that O'Connell would step down before having welcomed Pope Benedict to the campus in mid-April. After that, however, it's anyone's guess. Pope Benedict might even take the opportunity of his visit to officially announce the appointment, though I doubt he would allow such an announcement distract from the more important purposes of his wider itinerary.

Still, you never know, the pope might want to see the look on O'Connell's face.

Also, in a related vein, I've got several posts relating to Pope Benedict's April visit in the works.

[photo credit: Chase McAlpine]