What's Really Most Obnoxious About Rocco is When He Beats Me To a Story That Should Be Mine!

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In Crookston, www.NewBishop.com -- Literally

Returning to things Stateside, Friday brings the ordination and installation of Bishop-elect Michael Hoeppner of Crookston.

The 1pm (1900 GMT) liturgy in the Northwest Minnesota diocese's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception will be streamed at www.newbishop.com ... a domain name which could pull in quite a mint if they ever thought of leasing it out for future installations elsewhere. Archbishop Harry Flynn of St Paul and Minneapolis will preside.

Until his late September appointment to lead the local church of 36,000, Hoeppner, 58, served as vicar-general of Winona, his home diocese at the state's opposite corner. He succeeds Bishop Victor Balke, the longest-serving head of a US diocese; the departing ordinary arrived in Crookston in September 1976.

In an curious bit of ecclesiastical trivia, the seat of Crookston's bishop lacks a bishop's seat. Balke's liturgical counsel reportedly maintained that each presider's chair across the diocese was the bishop's throne, so the cathedra is conversely used by any celebrant.

The Order for the Mass is posted in pdf ...and now you've all got a free copy of the Rite of Episcopal Ordination. Whispers in the Loggia, by Rocco, of course