USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - Bishop Carmon's Resignation Accepted, Pope Names Auxiliary Bishop For New Orleans

Bishop Carmon's Resignation Accepted, Pope Names Auxiliary Bishop For New Orleans

WASHINGTON (December 13, 2006)—Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Dominic Carmon, SVD, of New Orleans.

At the same time the Pope appointed Father Shelton J. Fabre, pastor of St. Heart of Jesus Church, Baton Rouge, as Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans and Titular Bishop of Pudenziana. Bishop-designate Fabre, 43, was Director of the Baton Rouge diocesan Office of Black Catholics, 1991-2004.

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, made the announcements.

Shelton Joseph Fabre was born in New Roads, Louisiana, October 25, 1963. He studied at St. Joseph Seminary College, St. Benedict, Louisiana, and at the American College, University of Louvain, Belgium, where he earned an S.T.B. and an M.A. in Religious Studies.

Bishop-designate Fabre was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Baton Rouge on August 5, 1989.

Since then he has held numerous pastoral and administrative assignments. He was named Defender of the Bond in the diocesan tribunal in 1997 and appointed pastor of Sacred Heart Church in 2004.

Dominic Carmon was born in Opelousas, Louisiana, on December 13, 1930, the first of seven sons. A sister became a religious and a brother became a priest. He studied at the seminary of the Society of the Divine Word at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and at Divine Word College, Epworth, Iowa.

Bishop Carmon was ordained a priest February 2, 1960. From 1961 to 1968 he served as a missionary in New Guinea. He was pastor of St. Elizabeth's Church, Chicago, from 1968 to 1985 and pastor of Our Lady of the Gardens church in that city from 1985 to 1988.

He was serving as pastor of Holy Ghost Church in Opelousas when he was appointed Titular Bishop of Rusicade and Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans, December 16, 1992. He was ordained February 11, 1993, becoming the 11th African-American Bishop then active in the Church in the United States.