By Gretchen Keiser

During the interim in the archdiocese of Atlanta, before the pope selects a new archbishop, Monsignor Edward J. Dillon has been elected by the College of Consultors to be administrator of the archdiocese.

Following a procedure called for in canon law when the head of a diocese dies, the Consultors, a body of nine priest representatives, met Dec. 28 to elect a priest to oversee the archdiocese.

Monsignor Dillon, who has been vicar general for both Archbishop James P. Lyke, OFM, and Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, was chosen.

“It is a caretaker role,” Monsignor Dillon said in an interview Dec. 30. “Nothing is to be innovated. Nothing completely new is to be done. The programs the archbishop had begun or laid out will be carried forward.” At the moment of the archbishop’s death, his appointment as vicar general of the archdiocese ceased, Monsignor Dillon said. However, as newly elected administrator he will have very similar powers to those he had as the vicar general. In fact Archbishop Lyke had specifically delegated the Monsignor Dillon and Father Don Kenny, chancellor, the responsibility to administer the archdiocese when his health declined this fall.

Administrators can appoint priests as administrators of parishes, but not as pastors. Monsignor Dillon is able to confirm those ready for the sacrament of confirmation and Archbishop Lyke had also delegated to pastors the authority to celebrate confirmation in their own parish or to ask the priest who is dean of their region to confirm.

Two initiatives that were begun and that will continue are the work of a Pastors Task Force, which is reviewing the mission and budget of every archdiocesan office and secretariat as part of the 1993 budget process, and a new program for pastors, which the archbishop “had been promoting for a long time,” Monsignor Dillon said.

Father Willie Hickey is chairing a group working on developing an archdiocesan orientation program for first-time pastors and for pastors who are new to the archdiocese of Atlanta, the administrator said.

Monsignor Dillon said that although the Council of Priests also loses its authoritative role upon the death of the archbishop, Monsignor Dillon had asked the council to continue to meet as an advisory body to the College of Consultors. The Consultors, the six deans of the archdiocese, the head of the Council of Priests, the administrator and the vicar of clergy, are also members of the Council of Priests, a much larger group of priest representatives.

The process of selecting a new archbishop for the archdiocese formally began when the pope’s representative to the U.S., Archbishop Agostino Caciavillan, was informed of Archbishop Lyke’s death Dec. 27, Monsignor Dillon said. However, he acknowledged that “since the nunciature was fully informed of the gravity” of the archbishop’s illness since it was diagnosed in April, the Church would already be considering the need to discern his successor.