WASHINGTON — Pope John Paul II has named Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, 61, who has headed the Diocese of Honolulu for the past 10 years, to be bishop of Richmond. He succeeds Bishop Walter F. Sullivan, who retired last September after more than 30 years as bishop.

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, papal nuncio to the United States, made the announcement in Washington March 31.

Bishop DiLorenzo is scheduled to be installed May 24 in Richmond’s Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Francis Xavier DiLorenzo was born in Philadelphia April 15, 1942. He was ordained a priest of the Philadelphia Archdiocese May 18, 1968, after studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. He later did advanced studies at the University of St. Thomas in Rome, earning a doctorate in theology in 1975.

His pastoral and educational assignments in the Philadelphia Archdiocese included associate professor at Immaculata College and vice rector and later rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.

He was made auxiliary bishop of Scranton, in 1988. In October 1993 he was named apostolic administrator of the Honolulu Diocese, and a year later he was made bishop of Honolulu.

In Hawaii he was one of the first U.S. bishops to face a major public policy debate over same-sex marriage -- a topic that has since emerged as a growing national and international issue.

After the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that the state could not deny marriage licenses to couples based on gender without showing a "compelling state interest," the Honolulu Diocese was one of the leading players in efforts to achieve a public policy resolution that would affirm the traditional definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

In 1996 a trial court ordered the state to begin granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the following year the Legislature passed a law declaring marriage to consist of the union of a man and a woman. In 1998 Hawaiians overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment affirming the Legislature's power "to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples."

The 1993 court ruling in Hawaii sparked state legislative efforts across the country to ban same-sex marriages and led to the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which said no state is required to recognize same-sex unions as marriages, even if recognized or validated in another state.

Bishop DiLorenzo is chairman of the Committee on Science and Human Values of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In a previous stint as head of that committee, 1993-96, he inaugurated a series of popular teaching brochures, reflecting bishops' consultations with top scientists on topics such as the relationship of science and religion and ethical issues in the rapidly growing fields of genetic testing and genetic screening.

He is also a member of the USCCB Administrative Committee and has served on the USCCB committees on doctrine and bishops' life and ministry.

As a papally appointed participant in the 1998 Synod of Bishops for Asia, he urged more collaboration between Asian and U.S. bishops to serve the growing needs of Catholic Asian immigrants in the United States.

The Richmond Diocese, established in 1820, is one of the oldest in the U.S. It encompasses 36,711 square miles of Virginia, about 85 percent of the state. It has more than 210,000 Catholics in a total population of about 4.7 million.

More heavily populated northern Virginia, including the Washington suburbs, is covered by the Arlington Diocese, which was split from the Richmond Diocese 30 years ago.