Bishop to be named today (Phoenix)

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix will announce today who Pope John Paul II has chosen to be its third bishop, the Tribune learned late Monday. His formal installation will not come until after Christmas. "The person is a total dark horse," a highly credible source within the diocese said.

The pope’s choice wasn’t the two most oftenmentioned names: The Most Rev. Joseph Pepe, bishop of the Diocese of Las Vegas, and the Most Rev. Gavino Zavala, auxiliary bishop of the San Gabriel Region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It is someone not previously mentioned, the source said.

Mary Jo West, the diocese’s public information officer, declined to confirm the report.

She noted that staff regularly follow announcements from Rome on Monday nights and Tuesday mornings.

The formal announcement will come early this morning from the Vatican via the Catholic News Service in Washington, D.C. The source said the press conference to make the announcement could be at 10 a.m. today, but the time could be changed because of President Bush’s visit to Phoenix.

The new bishop not only will be expected to bring new respect, authority, ideas and energy to the diocese, but also to continue healing related to the upheaval and fallout from decades of sexual misconduct by priests.

Catholics in the diocese have waited more than five months for the Vatican to name a new bishop, although leaders predicted that a new leader would be named before Christmas.

The bishop post was vacated June 18 when Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien abruptly resigned "with a heavy heart and great sorrow" after being involved in a fatal hit-and-run. O’Brien is accused of driving a Buick Park Avenue that a struck and killed a jaywalker, Jim Reed, 43, who was crossing Glendale Avenue in Phoenix the night of June 14 while the bishop was returning home from a church event in Buckeye. Eyewitness reports led police to O’Brien’s north Phoenix home on June 16, where his car was examined and seized, and O’Brien was arrested.

O’Brien, 67, who was named bishop in 1981, is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 12.

After O’Brien’s resignation, Archbishop Michael Sheehan of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M., was appointed the apostolic administrator to oversee management of the diocese, dividing his time between Phoenix and Santa Fe.

O’Brien had been at the center of a firestorm as the Maricopa County Attorney Office’s investigated a litany of child sexual misconduct cases involving clergy. Sexual misconduct cases against 70 employees, including 45 priests, were found going back to 1978. O’Brien was harshly criticized in early June for reaching an immunity agreement with the county attorney.

The new bishop was selected through a timeworn process, called an episcopal selection, in which three nominations were initially developed through discussion by a selective group of diocesan leaders, with the names then forwarded to the papal nuncio, the pope’s representative in the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, who, in turn, presented them to the Vatican.

The diocese, which includes Maricopa, Yavapai, Coconino and Mohave counties and the Gila River Indian Community in Pinal County, has 480,000 registered Catholics. It is made up of 89 parishes, 28 missions and 34 Catholic schools. More than 300 priests, 225 nuns and 222 deacons will serve under the new bishop.

Okay, this was quick . . .

Wichita Bishop named new Bishop of Phoenix

Pope John Paul II has named Bishop Thomas James Olmsted of Wichita, Kan., to be the fourth bishop of Phoenix. The announcement was listed on the website of the Vatican Press Office Nov. 25.

A 56-year-old native of Oketo, Kan., Bishop Olmstead studied for the priesthood in Denver and Rome and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., in 1973.

Following his July 2, 1973, ordination, Bishop Olmsted was assistant pastor at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln from 1973 to 1976 and studied canon law from 1976 to 1979, graduating summa cum laude from the Gregorian University in Rome.

He then served in the Vatican Secretariat of State and as spiritual director of the North American College in Rome from 1979 to 1988 and as pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church and promoter of justice at the Lincoln diocesan tribunal from 1989 to 1993.

Bishop Olmsted went to the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, in 1993 as dean of formation and was appointed president and rector of the college in 1997. The Josephinum is the only pontifical seminary outside Italy.

He speaks and writes Italian and Spanish.

Bishop Olmsted is a member of the U.S. bishops' Administrative Committee and the Committee on Consecrated Life; he is a consultor to the Committee on Priestly Formation. He is also on the board of directors of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.

- More to Follow -

Any input would be welcome . . .

Did you hear Mnsgr. Fushek this morning? His radio quotable comment re Bishop Olmstead was,"the church here(meaning Phoenix)is different than the church there,(meaning Kansas).

I hope his slip is duly noted,since it gets to the very heart of the matter.The power players of the "church of phoenix",as they like to call the Catholic Church in the diocese of Phoenix,is concentrated in those that are committed to the Amchurch and all the error and infidelity found therein.

That statement shows me that they are not happy but planning on how they intend to strongarm and sweet tslk him into forming himself into a suitable bishop for this outpost of the Amchurch.

I am still miffed at archbishop Sheehan,allowing VOTF to meet in our parishes and ue the bulletins to advertise their meetings.Even bishop O'Brien did not allow them to met on parish grounds. Doesn't matter how well he seems to handle things,Sheehan did no favors for the new Bishop and I count his permission for VOTF as a big mark against him.

I think Bishop Olmstead should be a good Bishop,loyal to the Pope and Magisterium and a force for good Catholic teaching and Truth. Just hope the archbishop Pilarchzk,didn't taint him when he was at the Josepheum in Cincinati.

"Didn't Fusek have his own problems with some sort of controversy?"

Yes,he did. Several years ago the diocese paid $45,000.00 to a teen aged boy,to withdraw a complaint of sexual harassment against Fushek.Fushek claimed his attempt at friendshop was misinterpreted and meant nothing. However,to save time and money and a lawsuit,the diocese paid the young man. Fushek had to go away for treatment and now everything goes on as usual.

However,I think the complaint saved us,or perhaps some other diocese from getting him as bishop.He was definitely being groomed for replacing O'Brien.

Fushek also started "Life Teen",which has been adopted by many dioceses across the country. It has some merit but often appears to be more of an oppurtunity to meet and greet and date.The liturgical abuses at the Masses are truly awful,but the catechesis seems to be more on target than not.Funny,how sometimes even a quarter loaf becomes the object of much thanksgiving.

News Update
Kansas priest is surprise bishop appointment
By Lawn Griffiths, Tribune
Olmsted
The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, a Kansas farm boy by way of Rome, was introduced Tuesday morning at a news conference as the new bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
“The decision of the Holy Father to appoint me the bishop of Phoenix came as a great surprise, yet I have no doubt that this is God’s will,” said Olmsted, 56, a priest for 30 years. "It was the vicar of Christ who made the decision.”

Olmsted, who was named coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Wichita, Kan., in 1999 and bishop in 2001, will be formally installed in ceremonies Dec. 20 at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, which is unofficially called “The Bishop’s Church.”

He fills the vacancy left by the abrupt resignation and retirement in June by the Most Rev. Thomas J. O’Brien, who had served more than 21 years as diocesan head. O'Brien, 67, stepped down after being arrested in connection with a fatal hit-and-run accident June 14 in Phoenix while he was returning from a church event in Buckeye.

O’Brien goes on trial Jan. 12. He remains a bishop in retirement with specialized duties at the diocese.

Olmsted’s appearance in Phoenix came six hours after the Vatican’s press office first made his name public.

The new bishop formally was introduced by the Archbishop of Santa Fe, Michael J. Sheehan, whom the Vatican appointed as the apostolic administrator last June 18 after O’Brien’s resignation.

Olmsted was a surprise choice, diocesan officials said. His name was not on a list of three men the diocese had developed and forwarded to church authorities.

“The choice certainly came from the Vatican itself,” said Monsignor Dale Fushek, vicar general of the Phoenix Diocese and pastor of St. Timothy’s Catholic Community in Mesa. “He was not on the radar screen at all.”

“This appears to be a hand-picked selection,” said Fushek, noting that the new bishop had spent 16 years studying and working in Rome, including nine years as a priest in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. Olmsted acknowledged he had many opportunities during that tenure to work with the pope.

The new bishop, who grew up on a family farm in northern Kansas and went to a one-room school, graduated in 1969 from St. Thomas Seminary College in Denver. He earned a doctorate in canon law from Gregorian University in Rome. Besides his work in the Secretariat of State in Rome, he was the spiritual director at Pontifical North American College in Rome.

In 1989, Olmsted began a four-year pastorate in a parish in Seward, Neb., then moved on to a series of church administrative jobs until 1999, including rector and president at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. In 1999, the Vatican appointed him to the bishop post in his home state of Kansas. It consists of 93 parishes in 25 counties in the southeast quadrant of Kansas.

Fushek quipped that “it freaks me out” that the diocese will be headed again by a “Most. Rev. Thomas J. O. . . .” Both apply to O’Brien and Olmsted. “I called Bishop O’Brien, and I told him when he approves (paperwork) with ‘TJO,' we are going to have to know which man’s it is.”

Olmsted talked comfortably in Spanish during the news conference and sought to ease concerns about whether he would be able to address concerns of a diocese with 54 percent Hispanic parishioners. He had served for a time in a mission in Southern California.

The new bishop acknowledged that he has had little experience dealing with sexual abuse issues in Wichita like those that have rocked the Phoenix diocese in recent years, but he pledged to learn the history and use his authority to prevent a recurrence.

“I trust therefore it is God's will,” he said of his appointment. “I am humbled by his trust and I accept in his spirit of ready obedience and gratitude.”

He seemed to like Arizona weather. “It is much warmer here than when I left Kansas,” he said.

New Bishop: Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted

Age: 56

Previous role: Bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Kan., since 2001

Born: Jan. 21, 1947, in Marysville, Kan.

Seminary: St. Thomas Seminary, Denver, 1969

Ordained: July 2, 1973, Diocese of Lincoln, Neb.

Other studies: North American College in Rome; and canon law studies, Pontifical Gregorian University, summa cum laude, 1981.

Appointments: Worked in the Vatican Secretariat of State and was spiritual director of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, 1979-88; pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Seward, Neb., and official of diocesan tribunal, 1989-93; president and rector of Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio, 1997-99; coadjutor of the Diocese of Wichita, 1999-2001

Interests: History, baseball and basketball

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.