USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - Erie Priest Named Bishop of Greensburg

Erie Priest Named Bishop of Greensburg

WASHINGTON (January 2, 2004) -- Pope John Paul II has named Monsignor Lawrence E. Brandt bishop of the Diocese of Greensburg. He also accepted the resignation of the Most Reverend Anthony G. Bosco as bishop of Greensburg.

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, announced the papal actions.

Monsignor Brandt was born on March 27, 1939, in Charleston, West Virginia. After elementary school education in Pennsylvania, he studied at the Pontifical College Josephinum, Worthington, Ohio. He obtained a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, in 1966, and completed his theological studies at the Gregorian University, Rome.

He was ordained a priest on December 19, 1969, for the Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota.

Following ordination, he attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and, beginning in 1973, was assigned to successive diplomatic service on behalf of the Holy See in Madagascar, Germany, Ecuador, and Algeria. He left the diplomatic service for family reasons in 1981, and was incardinated in the Diocese of Erie. He served as vice-chancellor there before returning to Rome to complete a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University.

He was named a prelate of honor to the Holy Father in 1991.

Besides serving as both vice-chancellor and chancellor of the Diocese of Erie, he served as pastor of St. Hedwig's Church there.

Anthony Gerard Bosco was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1927.

He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh on June 7, 1952. After several pastoral and administrative assignments there, he was named auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh and ordained a bishop on June 30, 1970. He was named bishop of Greensburg in 1987.

The Diocese of Greensburg comprises four counties in southwestern Pennsylvania. It has a Catholic population of approximately 183,000 out of a total population of 682,000.