What jobs do Auxillary Bishops perform in the Church?

Question

What is the typical job of an Auxiliary Bishop serving under an Archdiocese? It seems more priests are Vicar Generals than Bishops, so do they do other administration?

And can they say mass in the Cathedral? What can they do? I read the Wiki entries.

Do they actually ever perform administrative functions, what is their daily role within the archdiocese or diocese they serve in? They say mass, do priestly ordinations, etc. I understand. What else do they do on a regular basis, how do they assist?

Answer 1

A auxiliary bishop is assigned to a Catholic diocese (or archdiocese) to assist its residential bishop (or archbishop).

For example, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is broken into five pastoral regions each having its own auxiliary bishop. A sixth auxiliary bishop heads the Ethnic Ministries of the Archdiocese.

These bishops perform the liturgical duties of a bishop for their regions assisting the archbishop (Cardinal Mahony) in ministering to the largest Catholic population in the U.S.

Auxiliary bishops:
+ Can and do celebrate Mass in the Cathedral
+ Assist the archbishop at the ordination of priests and deacons.
+ Celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation at the 288 parishes in the archdiocese with the archbishop celebrating at some

http://www.archdiocese.la/about/auxiliaries.html

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Auxiliary bishops help the Bishop (or Archbishop) especially with things that only a Bishop can do - priestly Ordinations, as you say, and Confirmations are the big ones.

Some dioceses have very large populations - in those cases the auxiliary bishops are also sort of 'regional' presences of the Bishop. If there are a lot of schools, eg, they will be the presence of the Bishop in the schools.

In some cases auxiliary bishops are more 'thematic'. E.g. one might be in charge of the schools, or the finances, etc. In Montreal one is in charge of the 'English'.

Eastern churches sometimes use the word 'Chor' Bishop for auxiliary bishops. Chor is from Greek chora - country (in the sense countryside). So auxiliary bishops had this sense of helping the urban bishop with duties over a large territory.

In terms of your other questions, yes, they can say Mass in the Cathedral - they can do everything a priest can do, but are always doing it to help the Bishop. If the Bishop wants a 'pontifical' Liturgy in the Cathedral he could ask the auxiliary. In my archdiocese there is an auxiliary, but neither he nor the Archbishop regularly celebrate in the Cathedral, because they have other duties (the rector of the Cathedral is responsible).