Donald Wuerl
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Donald William Wuerl (born November 12, 1940) is the the sixth Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, DC. From 1988 to 2006, he served as the 11th Bishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
On May 16, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Washington bishop Theodore Cardinal McCarrick on account of age. Wuerl was installed on June 22, 2006.
Born November 12 in Pittsburgh's Mount Washington neighborhood, he attended St. Mary of the Mount parish and school, then studied at The Athenaeum of Ohio in Cincinnati. He received graduate degrees from The Catholic University of America, the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy, and his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1974.
He was ordained to the priesthood on December 17, 1966. He began his career as an assistant pastor at St. Rosalia parish in Pittsburgh's Greenfield neighborhood, and perhaps more importantly, as a secretary to Pittsburgh Bishop John Wright. In 1969 Wright was elevated to Cardinal, and Wuerl served as his full time secretary for the next ten years.
Interestingly, when John Cardinal Wright was confined to a wheelchair with severe arthritis in 1978, Wuerl, as Wright's secretary, was the only non-Cardinal permitted into the conclave, which selected Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II.
From 1981 to 1985 Wuerl was rector of St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh. In December of 1985 he became an Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle and was ordained a bishop on January 6, 1986, in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome by John Paul II. It was a controversial move in that he was to rein in Archbishop Hunthausen's powers. Wuerl returned to Pittsburgh in 1987 and nine months later, in February of 1988, he was installed as the 11th Bishop of Pittsburgh, where for 18 years he led 800,000 Roman Catholics in 214 parishes throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.
Wuerl is also known from the television program "The Teaching of Christ", launched in 1990 on local television. It is now widely distributed through the Christian Associates cable channel, and through its national syndication. As a writer his best-selling adult catechism of the same name, now in its 30th year of publication, has been translated into more than 10 languages and is used throughout the world. He also has taught at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh as a Distinguished Service Professor. Wuerl was installed as Archbishop at 2:30 p.m. on June 22, 2006. On 29 June the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Archbishop Wuerl received the pallium from Pope Benedict.
It is expected that, like most Archbishops of Washington, he will be named a cardinal in the next consistory, which are the formal meetings of the Sacred College of Cardinals.
[edit] Books
- The Forty Martyrs: New Saints of England and Wales, (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1971)
- Fathers of the Church, (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1975)
- The Catholic Priesthood Today, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1976)
- The Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for Adults, (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1976)
- St. Christopher: A Military Martyr (Unpublished, 1979)
- A Visit to the Vatican: For Young People, (Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1981)
- The Gift of Faith: A Question and Answer Version of The Teaching of Christ, (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001)
[edit] Reference
- Glenn, Francis A. (1993). Shepherds of the Faith 1843-1993: A Brief History of the Bishops of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh: Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. ISBN none.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by: Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua |
Bishop of Pittsburgh 1988–2006 |
Succeeded by: Bishop Paul Bradley (interim) |
| Preceded by: Theodore Cardinal McCarrick |
Archbishop of Washington 2006– |
Succeeded by: incumbent |
