New Bishop Named for Bridgeport Diocese

By Frank Juliano
Ct Post
July 31, 2013

http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/New-bishop-named-for-Bridgeport-diocese-4697480.php

Frank J Caggiano, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn has been appointed as the new Bishop of Bridgeport, succeeding William Lori

BRIDGEPORT -- The Most Rev. Frank J Caggiano, 53, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. was introduced Wednesday as the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport.

Bishop Caggiano succeeds The Most Rev. William E. Lori, who was named Archbishop of Baltimore in March 2012.

The Installation Mass for Bishop Caggiano will take place on Thursday, September 19, at a time and place to be announced, diocesan spokesman Brian Wallace said. Until the installation of Bishop Caggiano, Rev. Monsignor Jerald A. Doyle will continue as administrator of the diocese, a post he had held since Lori left.

The bishop-elect said that he will be spending two or three days a week in Bridgeport until he is formally installed, while continuing to assist Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio in Brooklyn.

Caggiano called DiMarzio a mentor, "a good strong leader and a man of great faith,'' and praised Lori and Doyle for their stewardship of the 411,000 Roman Catholics in the diocese.

He asked the assembled press, clergy and employees of the Catholic Center to pray for him and that he is "ready to listen and learn about the needs of all of God's people, as fellows pilgrims on the journey of faith.''

Caggiano said when he got a phone call three weeks ago about his appointment he thought at first that it was a prank being played by his classmates. "Of course there had been rumors (of his appointment to Bridgeport). Thank God I didn't say what I thought of first.''

Several times in a free-wheeling question and answer session the bishop-elect drew smiles and laughs -- and one groan, when he announced that he is a New York Mets fan.

In answer to a question about gays in the Church, Caggiano said, "the love of God is universal, and everyone is welcomed into the life of the Church. But there is a need for us to live an authentic Catholic life of chastity.''

Although homosexual couples have a need for a shared life, "marriage is not one of those ways. Marriage is understood to be a man and a woman called together to make a life.''

Young people and evangelization are a special focus of his ministry, Caggiano said. He participated in the World Youth Day in Rio deJaneiro on Sunday, addressing the need for the young to use social media in a positive way. "It's the wild, wild west out there,'' the bishop-elect said Wednesday. "This is the venue of their lives and the Church seeks to baptize that venue.''

Caggiano was born in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn on March 29, 1959, Easter Sunday, the second of two children of Arnaldo and Gennarina Caggiano, both of whom came to this country in 1958 from the town of Caggiano in the province of Salerno, Italy. His father died in 2002.

The bishop, who is fluent in Italian, studied at SS. Simon and Jude School in Gravesend; Regis High School in Manhattan; Cathedral College in Douglaston, Queens and Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, L.I. He was ordained in May, 1987.

After ordination, he served in two Brooklyn parishes--St. Agatha's in Bay Ridge and St. Athanasius in Bensonhurst--before beginning five years of graduate studies in sacred theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in l991.

He earned a doctorate in 1996. When he returned to the Diocese he served at St. Jude's parish in Canarsie and then as pastor of St. Dominic's parish in Bensonhurst.

Hartford Archbishop Henry J. Mansell welcomed Caggiano as the new bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport. "With deep appreciation and elation we thank our Holy Father Pope Francis for his appointment.... Bishop Caggiano is highly admired by the clergy, religious, and lay people who know him for all of his dedicated leadership in parishes as parochial vicar and pastor, for his teaching responsibilities at various Catholic universities, and for a wide variety of administrative services that he has managed, including that of Vicar General in the Diocese of Brooklyn," Mansell said.

U.S. Sen Richard Blumenthal released a statement: "I welcome Bishop Caggiano to Connecticut. He has big shoes to fill, but I have every confidence that his impressive background and commitment to faith and service will serve him and Bridgeport area residents well. I look forward to working closely with him in the future."

Doyle joked that Caggiano "has barely ever left the borough of Brooklyn, and he is finding Fairfield County quite an experience.''

The monsignor noted that the new bishop's installation was set for Sept. 19, the Feast of San Genaro, "for obvious reasons.''

St. Genaro is the patron saint of Italian immigrants and of the city of Naples, the capital of Salerno, the province that Caggiano's family hails from.