Bishop Sean P. O'Malley of Fall River, Mass., has been named by Pope John Paul II as the new bishop of Palm Beach, Fla. His appointment was announced in Washington Sept. 3 by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, papal nuncio to the United States.

In Palm Beach, Bishop O'Malley succeeds Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell, who resigned in March.

Bishop O'Malley is a Capuchin friar. He was professed as a member in 1968, and ordained to the priesthood in 1970. In 1984, he was named coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. The following year, he became head of the diocese. Bishop O'Malley had been bishop of Fall River since 1992.

Born in 1944 in Lakewood, Ohio, Bishop O'Malley attended St. Fidelis Seminary in Butler, Pa., and Capuchin College and The Catholic University of America, both in Washington.

Just prior to his ordination to the episcopacy, Bishop O'Malley had been director of the Archdiocese of Washington's apostolate to Spanish speakers. He also speaks Portuguese, French, Italian and German. He is founder of their Spanish language newspaper, El Pregonero.

He also has a close relationship with Dr. Eduardo Azcarate and the Youth Apostles Institute here in the Arlington Diocese. He ordained four men with connections to Youth Apostles during his tenure in Fall River. One of those priests, Father David Sharland, recently was assigned to the community’s home in McLean. Bishop O’Malley was the keynote speaker at the diocese’s 25^th anniversary celebration at the Patriot Center in August 1999.

Bishop O’Malley is chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Consecrated Life, and a member of the bishops' Administrative Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Shrines.

Bishop O'Malley will be installed as Palm Beach's bishop Oct. 19.

He will head a diocese whose last two bishops resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The allegations against Bishop O'Connell stem from years earlier; he has acknowledged abuse of a high school seminarian in Missouri. He now faces several lawsuits.

Bishop O'Connell's predecessor in Palm Beach, Bishop J. Keith Symons, resigned in 1998 after admitting that as a priest he had sexually abused several altar boys.