VATICAN CITY, JULY 1, 2003 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II named Bishop Sean O’Malley of Palm Beach, Florida, as the new archbishop of Boston.
Archbishop-designate O’Malley, 59, succeeds Cardinal Bernard Law, who quit last December in the wake of scandals involving priests in the archdiocese. Bishop Richard Lennon has been serving as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese.
Meanwhile, the Pope also named Bishop Gerald Barbarito of Ogdensburg, New York, to succeed Sean O’Malley as bishop of Palm Beach.
Sean O’Malley was born June 29, 1944, in Lakewood, Ohio. He attended St. Fidelis Seminary, in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Capuchin College and the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
He entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins (Franciscans) when he was in high school. He made his solemn profession on July 14, 1968, and was ordained a priest two years later.
Then Father O’Malley was director of the Apostolate for the Spanish Speaking in the Archdiocese of Washington when he was named coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in 1984. He became bishop of St. Thomas on Oct. 16, 1985.
Appointed bishop of Fall River, Massachusetts, on June 16, 1992, he served there until last September, when he was appointed bishop of Palm Beach.
The Boston Archdiocese has a Catholic population of about 2.1 million out of a total population of 3.9 million.
The new bishop of Palm Beach, Gerald Barbarito, was born Jan. 4, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York.
He was ordained Jan. 31, 1976, after studies at Cathedral College in Douglaston, New York, and the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. He pursued graduate studies at the Catholic University of America where he earned a licentiate in canon law.
Bishop Barbarito was assistant pastor, Howard Beach, assistant chancellor and Vice Chancellor, and served on the Appeals Court of the Brooklyn Diocesan Tribunal. He was appointed bishop of Ogdensburg on Oct. 26, 1999.
The Diocese of Palm Beach has a Catholic population of about 246,000 in a total population of about 1.6 million.
