That’s how a London paper is characterizing his pick of Opus Dei bishop Jose Gomez to lead the Archdiocese of Los Angeles:

Jose Gomez has been parachuted into the archdiocese of five million to try to lure the increasingly lapsing faithful of southern California back to Church.
The appointment was described as the Pope’s revenge on Hollywood for filming “The Da Vinci Code.”

Benedict XVI’s choice comes after Colombia Pictures depicted Opus Dei as a secret society of murderous monks who, according to author Dan Brown, were trying to cover up the truth of Jesus’s secret affair with Mary Magdelene.

The appointment will give Opus Dei enormous influence in the American Church and Vatican, and is the most senior appointment for a member of the group.

It will also lead to Mexican-born Gomez, formerly the Archbishop of San Antonio, Texas, becoming the first Latin American US cardinal, a position that will give him influence in Rome and the right to vote at a papal conclave.

The choice is likely to dismay the Catholics of Hollywood, which falls within the archdiocese. The reigning archbishop, Cardinal Roger Mahony, avoided confrontation, but Archbishop Gomez is less likely to duck controversy.

Opus Dei, which he joined in 1978, is seen as one of the most devout of all the Catholic groups. Some of its priests practise self-flagellation while praying to the Virgin Mary and also wear a cilice – a spiked garter – to help them to mortify the flesh and avoid sexual sins.

One of Archbishop Gomez’s primary tasks will be to deal with the fallout from the abuse crisis.

None of the 2,000 priests of Opus Dei, which has the status of a “personal prelature” of the Pope, has ever been embroiled in a sexual scandal.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, however, is one of the worst afflicted by the clerical sexual abuse crisis that has convulsed the US Church since 2002.

Three years ago Cardinal Roger Mahony, the reigning archbishop, agreed to a record-setting £430 million settlement with more than 500 alleged victims of clergy abuse.

A federal grand jury is also investigating how the Archdiocese of Los Angeles handled claims of abuse.

There’s more at the link.