Pope Names Two Auxiliary Bishops for Washington

By Catholic News Service
(From the issue of 1/3/02)

WASHINGTON -- Pope John Paul II has appointed two Washington priests -- Msgr. Kevin J. Farrell and Father Francisco Gonzalez Valer -- as auxiliary bishops of Washington.
The appointments were announced Dec. 28 in Washington by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Bishop-designate Farrell, 54, is vicar general for administration and moderator of the curia in the Washington Archdiocese. A native of Ireland and a former member of the Legionaries of Christ, he has been a priest of the archdiocese since 1984.
Bishop-designate Gonzalez, 62, is the archdiocese's episcopal vicar for Hispanic Catholics. A native of Spain and a member of the Congregation of the Sons of the Holy Family, he studied for the priesthood in Washington and has served in the archdiocese in 1969-71 and since 1986.
He is currently vice provincial of the Sons of the Holy Family in the United States and is the first member of that order to be made a bishop. His appointment raises the total of active Hispanic bishops in the United States to 25.
They are to be ordained bishops Feb. 11 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
At a press conference Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington said, "The promotions of two bishops who speak Spanish and have worked in service to the Hispanic Catholic community give us a witness of the universality of the church here in the nation's capital."
He noted that the archdiocese's only other auxiliary, Bishop Leonard J. Olivier, is African-American.
Bishop-designate Farrell was born in Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 2, 1947. After graduating from the University of Salamanca in Spain he studied in Rome, earning licentiates in philosophy and theology from the Gregorian University and graduate degrees in pastoral theology and dogmatic theology from St. Thomas Aquinas University. He also has a master's degree in business and administration from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
He joined the Legionaries of Christ in 1966 and was ordained a priest Dec. 24, 1978. As a member of the Legionaries he was chaplain of the University of Monterrey in Mexico, where he taught economics, and then he became general administrator of the congregation, with responsibilities for its schools and seminaries in Italy, Spain and Ireland.
In 1984 he left the Legionaries to become a priest of the Washington Archdiocese. He was associate pastor of St. Thomas Apostle Parish in Washington, 1984-85; executive director of the Spanish Catholic Center, 1986; acting executive director of Catholic Charities, 1987-88; and archdiocesan secretary for finance and management, 1989-2001.
In 2001 he was named vicar general for administration, moderator of the archdiocesan curia and pastor of Annunciation Parish in Washington, the posts he held when he was named an auxiliary bishop.
Francisco Gonzalez Valer was born in Arcos de Jalon, Spain, May 22, 1939. He entered the Missionary Seminary of the Holy Family in Barcelona and took final vows with the Sons of the Holy Family, a Barcelona-based order, in August 1960.
Sent to the United States, he did his theological studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington from 1960 to 1965. He was ordained a priest May 1, 1964, in Richmond, Va. He also earned a master's degree in education from Catholic University in 1967.
Apart from two years in Spain, 1975-76, in teaching and pastoral work, Bishop-designate Gonzalez has spent his entire priesthood in the United States, most of it in Washington.
Following ordination he held pastoral assignments in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M., where he served in the archdiocesan tribunal. He also served in the West in 1982-83, when he was pastor of Our Lady of Peace Church in Greeley, Colo.
He came back to the Washington area in 1969-71 to teach at the Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Md.
He also taught for two years beginning in 1984 at St. John's Literary Institution at Prospect Hall, a Catholic high school in Frederick, Md., in the Baltimore Archdiocese.
He returned to the Washington Archdiocese in 1986, joining the staff of his order's Holy Family Seminary in Silver Spring, Md., where he served as rector and later vice provincial, and also holding archdiocesan posts.
He was spiritual adviser to the Hispanic charismatic prayer and Cursillo movements in the archdiocese, 1986-96. He was made coordinator of the archdiocesan Hispanic family life office in 1992; pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Takoma Park, Md., 1996-97; and episcopal vicar for Hispanic Catholics since 1997. From 1987 to 1989 he was also national Cursillo chaplain.
The Washington Archdiocese, which encompasses the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties, has 140 parishes serving half a million Catholics in a total population of nearly 2.5 million.
The appointment of two new auxiliaries brings the archdiocese back to three active auxiliaries for the first time since 1997, when then-Auxiliary Bishop Alvaro Corrada del Rio was assigned to Caguas, Puerto Rico, as an apostolic administrator -- a post he held until he was named bishop of Tyler, Texas, in December 2000.
In January 2001 another Washington auxiliary, Bishop William E. Lori, was named bishop of Bridgeport, Conn.
With their departures, Washington's only remaining auxiliary was Bishop Olivier. A bishop since 1988, Bishop Olivier remains active although he turned 78, three years past the ordinary retirement age for bishops, in October.

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