WASHINGTON—Pope Benedict XVI has named Bishop Paul J. Bradley, 63, Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh, as Bishop of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The appointment was announced in Washington, April 6, by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Bishop Bradley succeeds Bishop James A. Murray, 76, whose resignation from the pastoral governance of the Kalamazoo Diocese was accepted by Pope Benedict, April 6.

Bishop Bradley was named auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh by Pope John Paul II December 16, 2004.

Paul Bradley was born October 18, 1945, in Glassport, Pennsylvania. He studied at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana and was ordained a priest for the Pittsburgh Diocese in 1971. He served the next 12 years as parochial vicar in the parishes of St. Sebastian in North Hills, St. Paul in Butler and St. Kieran in Lawrenceville. He earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1987.

From 1983 to 1988 he was director of the diocesan Office for Family life, then Secretary for Human Services (now Secretariat for Social Concerns.) In 1994, Bishop Bradley was appointed pastor of St. Sebastian Parish where he remained until January 2001, when he was named rector of St. Paul Cathedral and pastor of St. Paul Parish.

He was named General Secretary/Vicar General for the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2003.

Bishop Murray, who was ordained a priest in 1958 for the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, was named Bishop of Kalamazoo in 1997. Before becoming bishop, he had been chancellor of the Lansing Diocese, moderator of the curia and rector of St. Mary's Cathedral. He holds a licentiate in Canon Law from The Catholic University of America.

The Kalamazoo Diocese includes nine counties of Michigan and has a population of 952,812 people, with 107,000, or 11 percent, of them Catholic.

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