Camden Bishop Named

The Most Rev. Joseph Galante, coadjutor bishop of Dallas and a former Vatican official, was appointed by the pope Tuesday as bishop of the Camden Diocese.

The post has been vacant since September, when Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio left last year to become bishop of the Brooklyn diocese.

Galante, 65, a native of Philadelphia, served for five years as undersecretary of the Vatican office in charge of religious orders worldwide.

Much of his career has been spent dealing with religious orders -- Catholics who take vows but are not ordained -- such as friars and nuns. But Galante has also worked in many other areas of church life, from local congregations to the Vatican.

He was ordained in Philadelphia, studied church law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome and then worked in the diocese of Brownsville, Texas.

Galante served at the Vatican from 1987-1992, returning to the United States as auxiliary bishop of San Antonio.

The Camden diocese serves about 450,000 Catholics in southern New Jersey. It includes the cities of Camden, N.J., Atlantic City, N.J., and the suburbs and farmland in between.

It was among the dioceses particularly hard hit by a national sex abuse scandal. The diocese has paid $5.7 million to victims of sexual abuse in legal settlements over the years -- almost all to settle cases that happened from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Galante is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops committee that drafted guidelines in 2002 for dealing with claims of sexual abuse by clergy.

"We look forward to his Episcopal leadership here in Camden," said Andrew J. Walton, spokesman for the diocese.

Walton said no installation date has been set.

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