I read with pleasure this morning that Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle was elected secretary-elect of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Archbishop Sartain was a fellow student at the Gregorian University in Rome in the late 1970s. I have posted on him before on this weblog, and to repeat myself, Sartain is a genuinely good man, a sincere priest and a bishop to whom more and more are looking for leadership. He presents Jesus Christ to our contemporary world.
Of note in the same report (www.thecatholicspirit.com/news/nation-and-world/archbishop-sartain-of-seattle-to-become-usccb-secretary-in-2012) is that Bishop Tony Taylor of Little Rock was elected to the CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network) board. Bishop Tony and I worked together in Rome visiting the elderly in the slums of the Trastevere area of that city back in 1977-78. He is an ardent defender of the marginalized and the undocumented in our country.
Of local note, Archbishop Nienstedt of St. Paul/Minneapolis was elected to the Committee on Doctrine. He is the Metropolitan for the diocese of Winona. Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin was elected to the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.
Let us pray for these men that they carry out well the duties assigned to them.
