LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Three new auxiliary bishops chosen by Pope Francis for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles were ordained Tuesday, Sept. 8, in a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Jose Gomez.
Monsignors David O’Connell and Joseph Brennan, who were already serving in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, were named auxiliary bishops by the pope in July, along with the Rev. Robert Barron, who was the rector/president of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Chicago.
Brennan, a Van Nuys native, has served as vicar general and moderator of the curia since 2012. He will serve as the Episcopal Vicar for the San Fernando Pastoral Region, replacing the retiring Bishop Gerald E. Wilkerson.
O’Connell, who was born in Ireland, has been a priest since 1979 and has held a variety of posts in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, primarily in the South Los Angeles area. He was pastor of St. Frances X. Cabrini Church. He will serve as the Episcopal Vicar for the San Gabriel Pastoral Region.
Barron will be the Episcopal Vicar for the Santa Barbara Pastoral
Region, which is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles — the nation’s biggest.
“I am overjoyed to be ordaining these three fine priests to be auxiliary bishops,” said Gomez, who celebrated the ordination Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. “Each of them is a man of prayer who has a heart to serve people. This is a time of joy for the entire Catholic family here in the Archdiocese and a time of grace for all the people of Los Angeles.”