USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - Pope Names Bishop Sean O'Malley as Archbishop of Boston; Bishop Barbarito of Ogdensburg Named Bishop of Palm Beach

Pope Names Bishop Sean O'Malley as Archbishop of Boston; Bishop Barbarito of Ogdensburg Named Bishop of Palm Beach

WASHINGTON (July 1, 2003) -— Pope John Paul II named Palm Beach Bishop Sean P. O'Malley, OFMCap., as Archbishop of Boston.

Archbishop-elect O'Malley, 59, succeeds Cardinal Bernard F. Law who resigned last December. Bishop Richard G. Lennon has been serving as Apostolic Administrator of the archdiocese.

The Pope named Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito of Ogdensburg to succeed Bishop O'Malley as Bishop of Palm Beach.

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, made the announcements.

Sean P. O'Malley was born June 29, 1944, in Lakewood, Ohio. He attended St. Fidelis Seminary, Butler, Pennsylvania, and Capuchin College and the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. He holds an advanced degree in religious education, and speaks Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German.

He was professed as a member of the St. Augustine province of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, July 14, 1968, and was ordained to the priesthood on August 29, 1970.

Archbishop-elect 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 October 16, 1985.

Appointed Bishop of Fall River, Massachusetts, June 16, 1992, he served there until September, 2002.

He was appointed Bishop of Palm Beach, September 3, 2002.

The Archdiocese of Boston was established in 1808 and made a metropolitan archdiocese in 1875. It is comprised of five counties of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has a Catholic population of approximately 2.1 million out of a total population of 3.9 million.

The new Bishop of Palm Beach, Gerald M. Barbarito, was born January 4, 1950, in Brooklyn.

He was ordained January 31, 1976, after studies at Cathedral College in Douglaston, NY, 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.

Named Titular Bishop of Gisipa and Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn, June 28, 1994, he was appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg on October 26, 1999.

The Diocese of Palm Beach, established in 1984, comprises the counties of Palm Beach, Martin, Indian River, Okeechobee and St. Lucie in the State of Florida. It has a Catholic population of approximately 246,000 in a total population of about 1,600,000.