How does one become a bishop in the Catholic Church? Electing our Bishops: How the Catholic Church Should Choose Its Leaders explains how history, politics, and religious tradition converge to produce the episcopacy. The book gives an historical overview from the earliest times when bishops were elected by the clergy and people of the diocese to the present day where they are normally appointed by the pope. In light of the current clergy sexual abuse scandal, many distinguished theologians, canonists, and church historians have called for greater popular participation in the selection of bishops, and Electing our Bishops discusses ideas for new forms of election that involve both clergy and laity. This book is an important tool for Catholics who want to understand the history and process of the election of bishops as well as how the process might change in the future.

"[O'Callaghan] has written a book that should be required reading for canonists, ecclesiologists, historians, and hierarchs themselves." - Anglican Theological Review

"An excellent and thorough history of the way bishops were chosen – from the time Mattias was selected by the apostles to replace Judas to the present time." - St. Anthony Messenger

"Joseph O'Callaghan's Electing Our Bishops is part history and part argument. Its argument gives the book its title. . . . O'Callaghan develops Celestine's principle. . . . Until as recently as 1999, this was also Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's opinion...It seems clear, especially in the wake of the sex-abuse cover-up, that the present way of doing things [electing bishops] is dysfunctional...O'Callaghan's provocative study encourages us to think hard about ways to change the system." - Commonweal Magazine

"Lucidly written and cogently argued." - Logos: Journal Of Eastern Christian Studies, October 2008