Catholic Diocese Gets New Bishop, Adam Parker, The Post and Courier, January 25 2009

Catholic Diocese Gets New Bishop

By Adam Parker
The Post and Courier
January 25 2009

http://www.charleston.net/news/2009/jan/25/catholic_diocese_gets_new_bishop69503/

Monsignor Robert E. Guglielmone speaks Saturday after he was named the 13th bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Charleston.
Photo by Tyrone Walker

Fifteen months after the Most Rev. Robert J. Baker left the Catholic Diocese of Charleston for Birmingham, Ala., the Vatican has announced a new bishop for the state of South Carolina.

Monsignor Robert E. Guglielmone, a native New Yorker who has served since August 2007 as rector of St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre on Long Island, the See city of the Rockville Centre diocese, will be ordained and installed as bishop on March 25. He will take the helm of the Charleston diocese during a rocky period in the history of the church.

Bishop-elect Guglielmone will face several challenges, including an unresolved local sexual abuse settlement case; changing demographics in the Catholic community, uncertainty about parochial school funding and enrollment; economic crisis and poverty; and changing political sentiment nationwide that has prompted the church to assert its position on ethical issues such as abortion and stem-cell research.

Evangelization will be his primary focus, he said after a press conference Saturday, citing the 2000 Apostolic Letter by Pope John Paul II in which the late pontiff urged his church "to take up her evangelizing mission with fresh enthusiasm."

Guglielmone said that reiterating the message of Jesus Christ was the "challenge of the century."

He is leaving the sixth-largest U.S. diocese, with about 1.4 million Catholics, for one whose population is approximately 176,000. Before he became rector of Rockville Centre's St. Agnes Cathedral, Guglielmone was the diocesan director of clergy personnel, overseeing 450 priests and 300 deacons, he said. By contrast, South Carolina has a total of about 130 priests and 100 deacons.

"I am both humbled and grateful that His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI would entrust this awesome ministry to me," he said Saturday morning. "I must admit that I am a bit anxious about leaving Long Island where I have spent almost my whole life.