HARTFORD (CT)
CT News Junkie
by Christine Stuart | Oct 29, 2013
He joked that he didn’t campaign for the position, but Toledo Bishop Leonard P. Blair said he happened to be in Rome when he learned he was being named Archbishop of Hartford and was able to thank Pope Francis in person.
“I asked for his blessing on the church in both Hartford and Toledo,” Blair said at a press conference Tuesday.
Blair, 64, will be installed on Dec. 16 as the fifth archbishop of the Hartford Catholic Diocese. He succeeds Archbishop Henry J. Mansell, 76, who served the diocese for 10 years and is past the mandatory retirement age of 75.
In recent years, the Catholic church has been plagued with priest sex abuse scandals and the Toledo diocese was not immune. According to news reports, Catholic officials in Toledo waited six months to investigate the sexual misdeeds of a Catholic school counselor in 2010.
Blair said his predecessor already had removed a number of accused priests and “subsequently I had to remove some as well, but I think there’s been a great process of healing and I think our diocese responded appropriately.”
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