July 1, 2003 - Pope John Paul II has named Sean P. O'Malley
O.F.M.Cap, Metropolitan Archbishop of Boston
 Bishop Seán was born in Lakewood, Ohio, in 1944, the
son of Theodore and the late Mary Louise (Reidy) O’Malley. He attended
St. Gabriel and Sacred Heart Elementary Schools in Pennsylvania and St. Fidelis
High School in Butler, Penn. He prepared for the priesthood at St. Fidelis
Seminary, also in Butler, and at the Capuchin College in Washington, D.C. He
was professed on July 14, 1965 in the Capuchin Order, a religious order dedicated
to following in the tradition of St. Francis of Assisi. On August 29, 1970,
he was ordained a priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He then went
on to earn a master’s degree in religious education and a doctorate in
Spanish and Portuguese Literature, both at the Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C., where he taught from 1969 to 1973.
In 1973 he began serving as Executive Director of Centro Catolico Hispano
in the Washington Archdiocese before being named Episcopal Vicar for the Hispanic,
Portuguese and Haitian communities and Executive Director of the archdiocesan
Office of Social Ministry in 1978.
He was ordained Coadjutor Bishop of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1984
and the following year became ordinary of the Caribbean diocese upon the retirement
of his predecessor. In June 1992 Pope John Paul II announced the appointment
of Bishop Sean to the Diocese of Fall River.
Bishop Seán is an active member of the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference. In November 2000 he was
elected by his brother bishops to serve as chairman of their Committee on Consecrated
Life. Currently, he is also a member of two other committees that oversee aspects
of their work: the Committee on Shrines and the Catholic Campaign for Human
Development. Throughout his years as bishop, he has served on the numerous
others, including Missions (of which he was chairman), the Administrative Board,
Priestly Formation, Hispanic Affairs, Migration, and the Church in Latin America
as well as on the board of directors for Catholic Relief Services and the Association
for the Development of the Catholic University of Portugal.
In 1998 he was appointed by the Holy Father to the Special Assembly for Oceania
of the Synod of Bishops, which was held at the Vatican from November 22 to
December 12. He has also served as Apostolic Visitator for several seminaries
in Central America and the Caribbean.
On September 3, 2002, Bishop O'Malley was appointed Bishop of Palm Beach,
Florida. Besides English, Bishop O'Malley speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and
also knows German, Italian and French.
Information taken from Vatican Daily Bulletin of : 01.07.2003, and the Diocese
of Palm Beach web site (http://www.diocesepb.org/bishop/bishop.htm)
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