Diocese of Camden Announces Outgoing Bishop Galante's Replacement
By Jason Laday
Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a new leader for the Camden Diocese following Bishop Joseph Galante’s decision to retire due to ongoing health issues. Dennis J. Sullivan, ordained as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of New York in 2004, will replace the outgoing bishop. The 67-year-old native New Yorker stated he will bring his experience as a priest in some of the poorest areas of Manhattan and the south Bronx to the diocese containing New Jersey's most dangerous city. “I bring here to this local church my experience as a priest and a bishop, but I have always been a pastor, leading and guiding different flocks, and allowing myself to be guided by them as well,” said Sullivan at an introductory press conference at the diocesan offices on Market Street. Explaining what he felt was Catholicism’s role communities such as Camden, Sullivan stated “the church must walk with the poor.” “We must never abandon the inner city,” he added. “I don’t know all the details of Camden — Bishop Galante has been filling me in — but the church will not abandon the City of Camden.” Galante issued his letter of resignation to Rome in January of 2012, effective whenever a replacement could be found. The 74-year-old church leader has been receiving dialysis treatments over the last 18 months for end-stage renal failure. “It sounds worse than it is,” insisted Galante. Even so, the outgoing bishop thought it best to retire ahead of his 75th birthday in July. Installed as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Camden in April 2004, Galante’s legacy includes a massive overhaul of the six-county church community, culminating in a reconfiguration that shrunk the number of parishes from 124 to 70. He also oversaw a 15-month series of “Speak Up Sessions,” collecting feedback from parishioners and clergy alike to address issues face by the diocese. Galante said that in his 20 years serving the Catholic church as a bishop throughout the country, his “happiest years” were spent in South Jersey. “It has not always gone smoothly, but I’ve cherished the collaboration and all the help of the priests, deacons and lay folk throughout the diocese,” he said. “I’ve had a deepening of prayer in my life, culminating in my illness,” Galante added. “God has blessed me tremendously, and I’ve never experienced such peace.” Sullivan, who under former New York Archbishop Edward Egan oversaw the closure of 27 churches and the merger of nine others, stated comes to the diocese not with a master plan, but with a desire to continue the work of his predecessor. “I do not come with a plan — I come to serve,” said Sullivan. “I plan to pick up the work that has been done beautifully and pastorally by Bishop Galante here.” He will be officially installed as bishop on Tuesday, Feb. 12. Born in the Bronx, Sullivan attended Mount St. Michael Academy and later Iona College, in New Rochelle, NY. As a sophomore, he left Iona College and enrolled in St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers. In response to an influx of Dominican immigrants to his parish of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1971, Sullivan volunteered to study in Muca and Tenares, in the Dominican Republic, where he became fluent in Spanish. After 21 years as pastor of the Church of St. Teresa, in Manhattan, he was appointed pastor of the Church of Sts. John and Paul, in Larchmont, NY, in 2004. That same year, he was made vicar general of the New York archdiocese. Sullivan, asked during Tuesday’s press conference about his sports affiliations, professed a love of both the New York Yankees and the Giants. However, he agreed to pray for the Philadelphia Eagles.
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