And there was much rejoicing!

Pope Benedict XVI today named Bishop Kevin J. Farrell, Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, the new Bishop of Dallas. The Diocese of Dallas is the 10th largest Catholic diocese in the United States. He succeeds Bishop Charles V. Grahmann, 75, whose resignation has been accepted by the Holy Father.

A press conference will be held in Dallas at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (10:00 a.m. Central Time) today. ...

Bishop Farrell, 59, has served in the Archdiocese of Washington since 1983. He was born on September 2, 1947 in Dublin, Ireland and was ordained a priest in 1978 after completing his theological studies in Rome. His first assignment, for the Legionnaires of Christ, was as chaplain for the University of Monterrey in Mexico. He became associate pastor of St. Bartholomew, Bethesda, Maryland in 1983. After becoming a priest of Washington in 1984, he served as associate pastor at St. Peter, Olney and St. Thomas the Apostle, Washington, DC before being named director of the Archdiocese’s Spanish Catholic Center in 1986. He also served as assistant executive director and interim director of Catholic Charities in the late 1980s. From 1989-2001, he was Secretary of Finance for the Archdiocese of Washington and from 2001 to the present, vicar general and moderator of the curia. He also was pastor of the Church of the Annunciation in Northwest Washington from 2000-2002. He was ordained an auxiliary bishop of Washington on February 11, 2002.

Fluent in Italian and Spanish, Bishop Farrell serves on the board of directors of CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network) and is a member of several committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, including Consecrated Life, Migration and Hispanic Affairs.

The Diocese of Dallas is home to one million Catholics. The people are served by 203 priests in 74 parishes.

Source

I was beginning to wonder just how long it would take to get a new bishop! Not that I was being impatient...

I'm really trusting that this will be a good thing for our diocese. May the Lord bless the bishop, old and new, and guide Him always on the path of righteousness, that he may then help us to find our way down the same path.

(Oddly, the first thing that came to mind when I read the news this morning was that now both Fort Worth and Dallas are being directed by 'Kevin'. Yeah... I'm strange. Let's talk about something we don't already know...)

You can read a more comprehensive bio at the Archdiocese of Washington webpage.