I recognize there were other bishops in the USCC, but I still insist that the overgrowth of the USCC was in this period--late 70s, early 80s--precisely when the Bernardins, Deardens, et al. were ascendant in the conference.  I can use the same illustration in my diocese, Metuchen, born in 1981 under the leadership of a sociologist, Ted McCarrick.  A little diocese in central New Jersey wound up with a chancery whose organizational chart could rival some federal bureaucracies, a phenomenon he repeated in Newark.  Of course, then dioceses suddenly began sprouting "annual appeals" to pay for this, pushing the focus of giving from the parish to the diocese.  The Left called it stewardship and the Right (as Dolan does in this letter) calls it "recognizing we are not congregationalists but gathered around our local bishop" (who, in the current generation, seem to be generous spenders and ready-to-tear-down/shut-down parish closers).  Never gave a nickel to a diocesan appeal; never will.