Pope Names Auxiliary Bishop Joseph McFadden to Harrisburg; Announces New Auxiliary Bishop for Philadelphia
WASHINGTON—Pope Benedict XVI has named Philadelphia Auxiliary Bishop Joseph McFadden, 63, as Bishop of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and named Msgr. Michael Fitzgerald, 62, Judicial Vicar of the Metropolitan Tribunal of Philadelphia, as an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia.
WASHINGTON—Pope Benedict XVI has named Philadelphia Auxiliary Bishop Joseph McFadden, 63, as Bishop of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and named Msgr. Michael Fitzgerald, 62, Judicial Vicar of the Metropolitan Tribunal of Philadelphia, as an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia.
The appointments were publicized in Washington, June 22, by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Bishop McFadden succeeds Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who was named Bishop of Ft. Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, last November.
Joseph P. McFadden was born in Philadelphia, May 22, 1947. He attended St. Joseph University and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree. He was ordained a priest for the Philadelphia Archdiocese in 1981, and an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia in 2004. He served in parishes in the archdiocese and as spiritual director at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and was a member of the Archdiocesan Committee for the Ongoing Formation of the Clergy.
As a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop McFadden has served on the Committee on Catholic Education and the Task Force on Faith Formation and Sacramental Practice.
The Diocese of Harrisburg, includes 7,660 square miles. It has a population of 2,027,835 people, with 244,073, or 12 percent, of them Catholic.
Michael Fitzgerald was born May 23, 1948, in Montclair, New Jersey. He attended Bishop Kenrick High School in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Temple University in 1970, a Juris Doctor degree from Villanova University, 1973, and a Master of Divinity degree from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in 1976.
He was ordained a priest for the Philadelphia Archdiocese in 1980.
Bishop-elect Fitzgerald earned a Licentiate in Canon Law from The Catholic University of America in 1989, and a doctorate in Canon Law from the Gregorian University, Rome, in 1991.
