New York Archdiocese Official Is Named Bishop for Camden, N.J.

By Sharon Otterman
New York Times
January 8, 2013

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/new-york-archdiocese-official-is-named-bishop-for-camden/

Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan

Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan, a top administrator in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, will be the next bishop of Camden, N.J., the Vatican announced on Tuesday.

Bishop Sullivan, who is currently the vicar general of the New York Archdiocese, will succeed Bishop Joseph A. Galante. Bishop Galante, who has led the Camden Diocese since 2004, is retiring because of failing health, according to the Vatican. The Camden Diocese includes six southern New Jersey counties that are home to about 500,000 Catholics, the Vatican said.

Bishop Sullivan, who is 67 and a Bronx native, attended elementary school in St. Anthony’s parish in the Bronx. The school is among 26 being considered this month for closing by the New York Archdiocese.

Bishop Sullivan was ordained as a priest in 1971. He spent 21 years as the pastor at the Church of St. Teresa on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In 2005, Cardinal Edward M. Egan appointed him vicar general.

In recent years, Bishop Sullivan has been a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on child protection, which oversees the church’s efforts to respond to the issue of sexual abuse by clergymen. He speaks Spanish and has served on several diocesan committees devoted to helping recent immigrants.

In a statement Tuesday, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan praised Bishop Sullivan as “my right hand.”

“Bishop Sullivan always generously shared with me his wise counsel and insights, based on his more than 40 years of priesthood in this archdiocese he proudly calls home,” he said.

In a statement, Cardinal Egan, praised Bishop Sullivan’s “total commitment to the clergy, religious and faithful of the archdiocese, especially those of Latin American and Asian heritage and those most in need.”

But the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a group that advocates for abuse victims, expressed disappointment in the appointment.

“He’s a member of the completely ineffectual U.S. bishops’ sex abuse panel, which functions largely as window dressing for a public-relations campaign masquerading as reform,” the organization said in a statement.