"No one ever thought about depriving Caritas of these funds," Raggi told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Jan. 14. "The diocesan agency plays an important role for many needy and for the city of Rome, which wants to continue to be the capital of welcome for the weakest."

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano wrote a letter to McCarrick that was published Monday on an Italian blog, Vigano's way of communicating after he went into hiding following his bombshell accusations against the pope in August.

Fewer than a third of U.S. Catholics rate the honesty and ethical standards of clergy as "very high" or "high."

The Catholic church would benefit if bishops felt more like local leaders and less like regional managers in a Rome-based nonprofit. One way to move in that direction would be to have the clergy elect their bishops.

There is no question that the process for the appointment of bishops should be updated. But the election of bishops with procedures similar to democratic elections would only exacerbate all kinds of rifts in the Catholic Church today.