UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
WASHINGTON—Pope Benedict XVI has named Bishop Kevin W. Vann of Fort Worth, Texas, 61, to be bishop of Orange, California, and accepted the resignation of Bishop Tod D. Brown, 75, from the pastoral government of the diocese. The pope also accepted the resignation of Bishop Matthew H. Clark of Rochester, New York, 75, from the pastoral governance of the Rochester diocese and named Bishop Robert J. Cunningham of Syracuse, New York, 69, as apostolic administrator of the Rochester diocese until the appointment and installation of a new bishop there.
The appointments were publicized in Washington September 21, by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Kevin Vann was born May 10, 1951, in Springfield, Illinois and was ordained a priest for the diocese of Springfield in 1981. He earned a doctorate in canon law in 1985 from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome. In the Springfield Diocese he served as associate pastor, pastor, and on the staff of the diocesan tribunal. In 2005, he was named coadjutor bishop of Fort Worth, Texas, to succeed Bishop Joseph Delaney, who died one day before Bishop-designate Vann was ordained bishop.
Bishop Brown, a native of San Francisco, was ordained priest of the Diocese of Monterey-Fresno, California, in 1962. He was named bishop of Boise, Idaho in 1988, and Bishop of Orange in 1998.
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