Dallas bishop retires, successor named; bishop named for Lake Charles

Published: 2007-03-06

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Bishop Charles V. Grahmann of Dallas March 6 and named Auxiliary Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Washington to succeed him. The pope also named Msgr. Glen John Provost, a priest of the Diocese of Lafayette, La., as the new bishop of Lake Charles, La. He succeeds Bishop Edward K. Braxton, who was transferred to Belleville, Ill., in March 2005. The Lake Charles Diocese had been without a bishop just nine days short of two years. Bishop-designate Provost is to be ordained a bishop April 23 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Lake Charles. Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced the changes in Washington March 6. Bishop Grahmann, who turned 75 last July, has headed the Dallas Diocese since 1990. In the intervening years it has grown from 212,000 Catholics in a population of 2.5 million to just under a million Catholics in a population of nearly 3.5 million. About 800,000 of the Catholics in the diocese are Hispanics, most of them new arrivals within the past 20 years. Bishop Farrell, 59, who has lived in Spain and Mexico, is fluent in Spanish and has ministered to numerous Hispanic communities. Glen John Provost was born Aug. 9, 1949, in Lafayette, La. He was ordained a priest of the Lafayette Diocese June 29, 1975, after studies at Immaculata Seminary in Lafayette, St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he earned a degree in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks French, Italian and Spanish.

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