Pope names Bishop Aymond of Austin head of Archdiocese of New Orleans
           
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI has named Bishop Gregory M. Aymond, 59, of Austin, Texas, as archbishop of New Orleans.
The pope has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes, who turned 75 on Dec. 2, 2007.
Archbishop Aymond’s appointment was announced June 12 in Washington by Msgr. Alexander Cifuentes Castano, charge d’affaires at the apostolic nunciature.
His installation Mass will be Aug. 20 at St. Louis Cathedral.
Archbishop Aymond is a New Orleans native, born there Nov. 12, 1949. After grade school and high school, he went to St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, La., where he graduated in 1971. He earned a master’s degree in divinity from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans in 1975 and was ordained as a priest of the New Orleans Archdiocese the same year.
From 1973 to 1981, he was a professor, business administrator and then rector of St. John Vianney Preparatory Seminary in New Orleans. From 1981 to 1986, he was professor of pastoral theology and homiletics and director of education at Notre Dame Seminary.
The bishop served as president-rector of Notre Dame Seminary from 1986 until the end of the 1999-2000 academic year, longer than any rector in the seminary’s 76-year history.
He also was a member of the seminary faculty for 18 years. During his tenure, Notre Dame Seminary grew to become the third-largest seminary in the country.
Archbishop Aymond was ordained an auxiliary bishop of New Orleans in 1997, and became coadjutor bishop of Austin in 2000, succeeding to head the diocese in 2001.
Archbishop Aymond has served as chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.
Archbishop Hughes was named archbishop of New Orleans in 2002, after serving as co-adjutor archbishop there since 2001. Since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, many of Archbishop Hughes’ responsibilities have involved shepherding Catholics in the archdiocese through the recovery from the storm.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans has a population of 1.08 million people, with about 387,000, or 36 percent, of them Catholic.

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