WASHINGTON — Less than nine months after taking over the scandal-battered Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., Bishop Sean Patrick O'Malley was named the archbishop of Boston by Pope John Paul II.

Named his successor in Palm Beach was Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito of Ogdensburg, N.Y.

The pope also named Auxiliary Bishop Thomas G. Wenski, 52, of Miami as coadjutor bishop of Orlando, Fla. As coadjutor, Bishop Wenski has the automatic right of succession upon the death or retirement of Bishop Norbert M. Dorsey of Orlando.

The appointments were announced July 1 in Washington by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Archbishop O'Malley, 59, succeeds Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who resigned last December after a year of growing scandal over his handling of priests who sexually abused children. In Palm Beach, he headed a diocese whose last two bishops resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

Auxiliary Bishop Richard G. Lennon of Boston has been apostolic administrator of the archdiocese since Cardinal Law resigned.

As head of the Boston Archdiocese, Archbishop O'Malley is likely to be named a cardinal by Pope John Paul in the next consistory.

The appointment is not the first time that Pope John Paul has moved a U.S. bishop into a key post after a short tenure in another diocese. The late Cardinal John J. O'Connor was named archbishop of New York just seven months after his installation in 1983 as bishop of Scranton, Pa.

Boston will be the fourth U.S. diocese to have been headed by Archbishop O'Malley, who has also lived and worked in several other places around the United States.

A Capuchin friar since 1965 and a priest since 1970, he was named coadjutor bishop of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in 1984 and became head of the diocese the following year. He was bishop of Fall River, Mass., from 1992 to 2002 and bishop of Palm Beach since Oct. 19.

Bishop O’Malley is familiar to many Catholics in the Arlington Diocese. In addition to his work with the Hispanic community in the Washington area, he was the keynote speaker in March 2000 at the Diocesan Jubilee Holy Year Celebration at the Patriot Center in Fairfax.

He also has been a frequent guest of the Youth Apostles Institute in McLean. While in Fall River, he ordained three local men — Hernando Herrera, David Sharland and Mike Kuhn — to the priesthood for Youth Apostles. Father Sharland has been on loan from Fall River to the Youth Apostles House in McLean for the past year.

Born June 29, 1944, in Lakewood, Ohio, in the Diocese of Cleveland, Sean Patrick O'Malley attended St. Gabriel and Sacred Heart Elementary School in Pennsylvania and St. Fidelis High School in Butler, Pa.

He prepared for the priesthood at St. Fidelis Seminary, also in Butler, and at the Capuchin College in Washington.

Professed in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin on July 14, 1965, he was ordained a priest on Aug. 29, 1970. Following ordination, he earned a master's degree in religious education and a doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese literature, both from The Catholic University of America in Washington, where he taught from 1969 to 1973.

Beginning in 1973, he served as executive director of Centro Catolico Hispano in the Washington Archdiocese until his appointment in 1978 as episcopal vicar for the Hispanic, Portuguese and Haitian communities and executive director of the archdiocesan Office of Social Ministry.

In addition to English, Portuguese and Spanish, Archbishop O'Malley speaks French, Italian and German.

Named coadjutor bishop of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands on June 2, 1984, he was ordained a bishop on Aug. 2, 1984, and became head of the diocese on Oct. 16, 1985, when his predecessor retired.

Pope John Paul transferred Bishop O'Malley to Fall River on June 16, 1992, and to Palm Beach on Sept. 3, 2002. He officially took over the Palm Beach post on Oct. 19 last year.

Earlier this year he was principal celebrant and homilist at the Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on the morning of the annual Jan. 22 March for Life.

Currently chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Consecrated Life and a member of the committees on Shrines and on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Archbishop O'Malley also has chaired the Committee on Missions and served on the Administrative Board and the committees on Priestly Formation, Hispanic Affairs, Migration and Church in Latin America in the past.

He also has been a member of the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services and the Association for the Development of the Catholic University of Portugal.

In 1998, Pope John Paul appointed Bishop O'Malley to the Special Assembly for Oceania of the Synod of Bishops, which was held at the Vatican from Nov. 22 to Dec. 12. He also has served as apostolic visitor for several seminaries in Central America and the Caribbean.