Pope Francis accepts resignation of Bishop of Brooklyn and appoints successor

The Vatican’s press office reported on September 29 that Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Archbishop of Brooklyn, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who was acquitted by the Vatican of allegations of sexual abuse.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) reviewed the results of the church’s investigation with Bishop DiMarzio and determined that the allegations lacked “a semblance of truth,” according to a September 1 statement from the New York Archdiocese.

Bishop Dimarzio is 77 years old, two years older than the age at which canon law requires bishops to submit their resignations to the Pope.

On Wednesday, September 29, Pope Francis also appointed Bishop Robert J. Brennan, the so far bishop of Columbus, in Ohio, is the new bishop of Brooklyn.

With 1.5 million Catholics, Brooklyn, which includes the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, is the fifth largest parish in the United States.

Bishop Brennan, 59, grew up in the Bronx and always lived in New York before being ordained as bishop of Columbus in 2019.

Brooklyn’s new bishop will take over the diocese on November 30 at San Jose Cathedral.

In a video message to the diocese on September 29, Bishop Brennan said: “If you will be patient with me, I promise to do my best.” “I have much to learn from you, priests of the Brooklyn Parish, from your wisdom and from your experience. I need your help.”

The bishop also asked for patience in his grief when he left his former parish to see “a sign of my great confidence in my desire to know and love you, and to stand side by side with you in the work of the gospel.”

“For now, let us unite in our fraternal prayers for one another,” he said.

Bishop Brennan is the eldest of five children and grew up in Lindenhurst, Suffolk County, New York State. He holds a BA in Mathematics and Computer Science from Saint John’s University in Queens.

After his 1989 ordination to the priesthood in Huntington, New York, Monsignor Brennan served as pastor, bishop’s secretary, and attorney general for the Archdiocese of Rockville Center before being appointed auxiliary bishop of the diocese in 2012.

He is bilingual and celebrates Spanish Mass frequently, as well as at the Nassau County Correctional Center.

Bishop DiMarzio was consecrated auxiliary bishop of Newark in 1996. He served as Bishop of Camden between 1999 and 2003, the year he was transferred to Brooklyn. In his time in Newark, he coincided with Theodore McCarrick, who served as Archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000.

The charges were brought against Archbishop DiMarzio initially in civil trials and had to do with his time as a priest in the 1970s in the Diocese of Newark.

According to the criteria that Pope Francis applied in the document You are the light of the world (You are the Light of the World) To confront abuses in the Catholic Church, it is up to the Archbishop to investigate the accusations against other bishops in his area.

The Holy See then authorized Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, to conduct the investigation, which was carried out with an outside law firm.

The Civil Defense Forces reviewed the findings of the investigation and concluded that the allegations “do not appear to be true.”

Archbishop DiMarzio said on September 1 that he had “fully cooperated with this investigation, because I knew I had done nothing wrong.”

He stressed that “I have prayed for the outcome of this investigation, and these final results confirm, as I have consistently said, that these allegations have absolutely no basis.”

Translated and adapted by Walter Sanchez Silva. Originally Posted in CN