by Joshua J. McElwee
Pope Francis on Thursday appointed three bishops: Msgr. Olivier Leborgne as bishop of Amiens, France; Msgr. Carl Kemme as bishop of Wichita, Kan.; and Msgr. Peter Baldacchino as auxiliary bishop of Miami.
The appointment of Kemme, who had been serving as the vicar general of the Springfield, Ill., archdiocese, was first announced Thursday by Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki.
Five minutes before the Vatican press office released the official notice of the new bishop's appointment, Paprocki tweeted:
Following Kemme's installation May 1, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, five U.S. dioceses will still be without bishops.
Baldacchino, a native Maltese, becomes the first auxiliary for Archbishop Thomas Wenski's Miami archdiocese, which has a population of about 1.3 million Catholics.
[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR national correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]
