Auxiliary Bishop

The Most Rev. Walter Paska, 84, retired auxiliary bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, died of complications of a stroke Saturday at AristaCare in Plymouth Meeting. The archdiocese, as the archeparchy is also known, covers Eastern Pennsylvania and all of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia and numbers 22,500 communicants. From 1975 until 2006, Bishop Paska was the judicial vicar and vocations director of the archeparchy.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, yesterday announced that Msgr. Daniel E. Thomas has been named an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese. Thomas, pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Strafford, Chester County, will be consecrated July 26 at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul. Thomas, who turns 47 on Sunday, is now the second-youngest Catholic bishop in the country. He succeeds Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, whose appointment as the new bishop of Raleigh, N.C., was announced there yesterday.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is planning to build three Catholic high schools in the suburbs and perhaps a school in the city, a top church official said yesterday. "Philadelphia built a brand-new high school, Bishop Shanahan High School in Downingtown, just six years ago," Auxiliary Bishop Joseph P. McFadden said at the National Catholic Educational Association convention in Center City. "And we are looking at three different sites for the potential of building three additional high schools in the communities where the population has shifted now. " McFadden, who oversees Catholic education in the five-county archdiocese, said specific locations had not been chosen.

At his first news conference since becoming archbishop here eight months ago, Cardinal Justin Rigali announced the appointments yesterday of Msgrs. Joseph R. Cistone and Joseph P. McFadden as auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. "This archdiocese is large and the needs of its people immense," Rigali said. Cistone, 55, has been the archdiocese's vicar for administration for the last 6 1/2 years, responsible for much of its day-to-day operations. McFadden, 57, is pastor of St. Joseph's parish in Downingtown.

The Rev. Michael F. Burbidge, rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, has been named an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua announced yesterday. Msgr. Burbidge, who turned 45 last week, will be the second-youngest Roman Catholic bishop in the United States when he is consecrated in early September. He served as Cardinal Bevilacqua's administrative secretary for seven years before starting as rector of the diocesan seminary three years ago. In addition to his new duties as a bishop, which include presiding at confirmation ceremonies, he will remain rector of the seminary in Wynnewood.

A bishop in the Archdiocese of New York who was an assistant to Cardinal Edward Egan has resigned after admitting he had a number of affairs with women, the archdiocese said yesterday. The Rev. James McCarthy, an auxiliary bishop of the nation's most influential Roman Catholic archdiocese, admitted to a number of affairs with women after the archdiocese received a letter about them Saturday. McCarthy, who turns 60 next month, is the fourth U.S. bishop to resign in a sex scandal that has engulfed the U.S. Catholic Church.

Bishop James L. Schad, 84, who went from pretending to say Mass on his mother's ironing board to a position of power in the Roman Catholic Church's nearly half-million-strong Camden Diocese, died Wednesday of renal failure at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden. Bishop Schad had served since 1966 as the diocese's first and only auxiliary bishop. He retired in 1993 but continued to administer confirmation and perform other duties. Except for his serving as an Army chaplain for three years, from 1949 to 1952, Bishop Schad spent his entire 59 years as a priest in South Jersey.

Dom Helder Camara was no stranger to poverty and the powerlessness of the poor. Through his work as bishop, preacher and author, he spoke out fearlessly and called all Christians to take note of the overwhelming presence of poverty in Brazil and all of the underdeveloped world. Pope John Paul II called him a "friend of the poor. " Camara, who died Friday at age 90, was first appointed auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro in 1952, and named archbishop of Olinda and Recife in northeast Brazil in 1964.

Bishop Edward P. Cullen, for 10 years vicar for administration in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has been named the next bishop of the Diocese of Allentown. Bishop Cullen, an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic archdiocese since 1994, succeeds Allentown's current bishop, the Most Rev. Thomas J. Welsh, who is retiring. Investiture will take place sometime in February. Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, archbishop of Philadelphia, greeted yesterday's announcement "with a mixture of joy and sorrow" and praised Bishop Cullen, whom he described as "not just my right arm but my right and left arm. . . . He was very easy to work with.