A NEW COADJUATOR BISHOP FOR THE ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES..........

Archbishop + Roger Cardinal Mahony, of Los Angeles, will be 75 years old on February 27, 2011, the canonically required age of resignation for prelates and pastors of the Catholic Church. Therefore, he will retire from active ministry then, after nearly twenty six years as Archbishop of Los Angeles, which is now the largest diocese in the United States with more tha 4 million Catholics, 70% Latino. On Tuesday April 6, Pope Benedict XVI, appointed Archbishop + Jose Horacio Gomez, the past six years Chief Shepherd of San Antonio, Texas as Cardinal Mahony's successor in Los Angeles, naming him Coadjuator Bishop of Los Angeles, giving him the right to succession to the Archbishopric of Los Angeles, upon Cardinal Mahony's retirement next February. Born in Monterrey, Mexico, he is 58 years old. Educated in his native Mexico at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and the National University of Mexico, where he completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy in 1975, he joined the Catholic organization, Opus Dei, as a student. Leaving Mexico for Rome, and the University of Navarre, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theology in 1978. Ordained a priest of the Opus Dei prelature on August 15, 1978, going on to complete his Doctorate in Sacred Theology in Pamplona Spain in 1980. After doing campus pastoral ministry with college students in Spain and Mexico, he arrived in San Antonio, Texas where he did parish work for a number of years. Becoming an American citizen in 1995, from 1991 onwards he was extensively involved in American Hispanic Ministry affairs, t the national level and in January 2001, was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Denver Colorado, and in December 2004, was appointed Archbishop of San Antonio, Texas. Now on April 6, 2010, he has been appointed Coadjuator Archbishop of Los Angeles, California. As the Cardinal Mahony era in the Church of Los Angeles draws to a close and the Archbishop Gomez era dawns, the months and years ahead will surely define the efffectiveness and legacy of their pastoral episcopal leadership in California of our nation's largest diocese..........Easter Blessings In The Joy And Peace Of The Risen Christ, Fr. Troy