Dear Buffalo: It’s Over – Capping Year of Scandal, Malone Set To Resign

After a year and a half of crisis and torment for the 570,000 Catholics of Western New York, the wait is over – on Wednesday, the diocese of Buffalo is set to fall vacant upon the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone in the wake of a staggering outbreak of scandals.

The first and most important outcome of October’s Apostolic Visitation of the Buffalo church, four Whispers ops confirm the report first delivered to this scribe early yesterday.

Beyond announcing the Pope’s acceptance of Malone’s resignation at 73, house sources likewise indicate that the Holy See is to name Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany as apostolic administrator of Buffalo until a permanent replacement is installed.

Set to be granted the full faculties of the diocesan bishop for the duration of the vacancy – a significant contrast to an interim leader elected by the local Consultors – the Albany prelate is notably a product of Brooklyn, whose Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio conducted the Buffalo Visitation on Francis’ behalf.

For clarity, while the groundwork is already being prepared under these provisions, it nonetheless remains the case that – however unlikely – anything can change until an announcement is formally made by the Holy See, and no move has any legal effect until that point. Accordingly, in the process of reporting this story, one op relayed that the Wednesday time-frame for Malone's departure was not the initial planned date for it.

At the same time, no indication has been received on the future of Buffalo’s lone auxiliary, Bishop Edward Grosz, whose role in being the first point of contact on abuse allegations has come in for heavy criticism over the last year.

As the focus now turns to the succession, two things bear noting. First, all indications are that the process shouldn’t take too long – as reported here upon the Visitation’s launch, with the vacancy now triggered, the Roman investigation’s report will essentially comprise the opening stage of the search: the required consultation of the diocese’s rank-and-file, which establishes the state and needs of the local church. Beyond that, given the keen awareness in several quarters that the situation has already been dragged out to excess, it’s to be expected that the Buffalo file will be placed ahead of the nation’s 20 other diocesan openings in being processed through the Washington Nunciature and Congregation for Bishops with all possible speed.

Along these lines, as Whispers reported to the page’s stakeholders in their November briefing, with informal conversations on potential Malone successors having been underway in significant circles over the last several months, a rough frame of possible choices is already well in the works.

Beyond the now globally-known festival of misconduct – which, beyond charges of a cover-up of abuse cases, included what Malone himself termed a “love triangle” involving the bishop’s priest secretary, another cleric and a seminarian – as well as the general fury and distrust of the people (which saw 86 percent of locals in a Buffalo News poll call for the embattled prelate's ouster, and Malone's halt to publishing his calendar of public events due to protests at his appearances), the diocese’s financial and legal future have come to loom heavily on the scene, even beyond an ongoing FBI investigation.

Already a defendant in over 200 lawsuits filed under New York State’s one-year “window” suspending the civil statute of limitations, Buffalo is widely perceived as the most likely Empire State see to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, following the diocese of Rochester’s filing shortly after the “window” opened in August. According to one internal projection obtained by Whispers, a majority of the New York province’s eight sees could end up following suit as the decades’ worth of litigation piles up over the next nine months.

Lastly, however delayed it might be in the eyes of most observers, Malone’s ouster is likely to satisfy the consensus sentiment of the US bishops, one of whom called the now-departing prelate a “shit-storm” as the Buffalo crisis wore on, while several others have voiced exasperation in asking “What on earth is taking so long?” over the last year.

* * *

All that said, though Malone’s departure has been prematurely heralded elsewhere at various points over these last months, for the purposes of these pages – guided as ever by a sense of process – it was simply impossible for Whispers to report the move until a decision and date were firmly in hand….

And so, here we are.

With thanks to the donors who’ve kept the shop afloat this far, with another process now at hand – and no shortage of other threads on tap, to boot – as ever, these pages only keep coming your way through your support:

SVILUPPO (9pm ET): And now, 15 months since the first alerts on Malone's handling of cases were reported by Buffalo's WKBW, earlier tonight this scribe talked the road ahead with the colleague whose diligent, often thankless work brought Rome to this moment, Charlie Specht:


-30-