ATLANTA (GA)
Macon Telegraph
By Doug Gross
Associated Press
ATLANTA - The former president of America's Roman Catholic bishops, who led the prelates through the height of the clergy sex abuse crisis, was appointed archbishop of Atlanta on Thursday, signaling Vatican approval of his leadership through the scandal.
Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Wilton D. Gregory to serve as archbishop of Atlanta. Gregory, who had been serving as bishop in Belleville, Ill., will become Atlanta's sixth archbishop.
The appointment places a black clergyman at the head of an archdiocese based just blocks away from where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. And it signaled an approving nod to a man who, as head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, balanced difficult factions during one of the church's most difficult public periods.
"If he had gotten all sorts of people mad over at the Vatican, he would not be moving to Atlanta," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, an expert on the church hierarchy and editor of the Jesuit magazine America.
Posted by kshaw at December 10, 2004 08:51 AM