Bishop Kmiec, 68, succeeds Henry Mansell, who was appointed archbishop of Hartford, Connecticut, last October.
Edward Kmiec was born in Trenton, New Jersey. He studied at St. Mary’s, Baltimore, the Gregorian University in Rome, and the North American College, and was ordained a priest of the Trenton Diocese in 1961.
He was named auxiliary bishop of Trenton in August 1982. He was appointed bishop of Nashville, Tennessee, in October 1992.
The Buffalo Diocese counts about 708,000 Catholics in a total population of 1.5 million.