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Pope Names New Bishop for Fort Worth Catholic Diocese

By Domingo Ramirez Jr
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
November 19, 2013

ramirez@star-telegram.com


FORT WORTH For the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, a priest within the diocese was named as its bishop on Tuesday by Pope Francis, diocese officials said.

Pope Francis named Rev. Msgr. Michael F. Olson, 47, a rector of Irving-based Holy Trinity Seminary, as the fourth bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth.

The announcement of the appointment was made Tuesday morning by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States — the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S.

Olson will be ordained bishop and installed as Bishop of Fort Worth at a 2 p.m. Mass Jan. 29 in the Fort Worth Convention Center, 1201 Houston Street.

The 47-year-old Olson will become the second youngest bishop in the United States to lead a diocese. The youngest is fellow seminary classmate Bishop Oscar Cantú of the Diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Both are graduates of the St. Mary Seminary in Houston, a Fort Worth diocese release states.

Olson will lead an estimated 710,000 Catholics in 90 parishes in the 28-county North Texas region.

He succeeds Bishop Kevin Vann, who was appointed Bishop of Orange, Calif., in September 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.

“I am very humbled and deeply moved by Pope Francis’ appointment of me to serve as the Bishop of Fort Worth,” Olson said in a Tuesday news release from the Fort Worth diocese. “In a very special way, I am delighted to return home to the Diocese of Fort Worth to serve the priests, deacons, religious, and all of the faithful as their bishop.”

Olson has experience in parish service, seminarian formation and diocesan administration.

The new bishop, a native of Illinois, was ordained a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth on June 3, 1994 by the late Bishop Joseph Delaney at St. Patrick Cathedral. His first assignment was as the parochial vicar — an associate pastor — of St. Michael Parish in Bedford, where he served from July 1994 through June 1997.

Olson was recipient of the Basselin Scholarship at the Catholic University of America, where he earned his bachelor and master degrees in philosophy in 1988 and 1989 respectively.

In 1997, he entered St. Louis University Center for Health Care Ethics for doctoral studies and continued his studies there through June 2001. From July 2001 to May 2006, he served as formation adviser at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston.

In July 2006, he became pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Fort Worth where he served until June 2008. Concurrently, he served as the Vicar General in the administration of Bishop Vann.

In July 2008, he was assigned as the rector of Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, where he currently serves.

While rector, Bishop-elect Olson earned his doctorate in moral theology at Academia Alfonsiana in Rome. On May 6, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI granted him the Papal Honor of Chaplain to His Holiness with the title of “monsignor.” He has served as the community representative to the Houston-based University of Texas Medical Center’s Ethics Committee for Research Involving Human Subjects.

Olson was born on June 29, 1966 in Park Ridge, Illinois, the son of Ronald G. and Janice Fetzer Olson. He has three sisters, Mary Elizabeth Rogers, Patricia Tucker and Lizbeth Schweitzer. He grew up in Des Plaines, Ill., where he and his family were members of St. Mary Parish. He received his high school diploma from Quigley Preparatory Seminary North in 1984 and became a seminarian the same year for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

When Bishop-elect Olson’s family moved to Fort Worth as part of the corporate relocation of GTE/DC, seminarian Olson transferred to the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/11/19/5350106/pope-names-new-bishop-for-fort.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Contact: ramirez@star-telegram.com




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