VATICAN CITY
America
Gerard O’Connell
In yet another decisive move to reshape and give a new direction to the church in the United States, Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal-elect Joseph (“Joe”) Tobin, 64, a man of simple lifestyle, committed to dialogue, encounter and the poor, as the new archbishop of Newark.
The Vatican announced this at midday, Nov. 7, confirming the news that was broken some days earlier in the United States. It said the pope accepted the resignation presented by Archbishop John J. Myers and appointed Archbishop Tobin of Indianapolis to succeed him
At the time of his appointment, the Detroit-born archbishop was the leader of the archdiocese of Indianapolis with its 250,000 faithful, which he had served since Oct. 2012. He now moves to the much larger Archdiocese of Newark, whose 1.2 million faithful have suffered many trials in recent years during the leadership of Archbishop John Myers, who now retires having reached the age of 75 last July.
Francis understood well that this diocese needed a new style of leader, and he found the man in Joseph Tobin, C.Ss.R., a member of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, better known as the Redemptorists, a Catholic missionary order of priests and brothers founded by St. Alphonus Maria de Liguori in 1749.
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