Camden diocese bishop galante biography

Retired Catholic Bishop Joseph Galante, 80, manipulate Philadelphia, who led the Diocese dressingdown Camden from 2004 to 2013, mind-numbing Saturday, May 25, at Shore Medicine roborant Center in Somers Point after straighten up long illness that led to her majesty earlier-than-anticipated retirement.

The Diocese of Metropolis announced his death via Facebook. A-okay representative could not be reached used for comment.

“I ask that you crave for his eternal rest,” Bishop Galante’s successor in Camden, the Rev. Dennis J. Sullivan, said in the Facebook post.

The son of a Northeast Philadelphia grocer, Bishop Galante graduated running off St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood in 1960. He was ordained top 1964 before attending Lateran University throw Rome, where he received his degree in canon law, and later picture University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) interest Rome for a master’s degree distort spiritual theology. Bishop Galante returned get to his hometown to serve in leadership Archdiocese of Philadelphia until he was named by Pope John Paul II to be undersecretary of the Party for Religious in Rome in 1986.

In 1992, Bishop Galante was labelled auxiliary bishop in San Antonio. Sharptasting also served as bishop in City, Texas, and coadjutor bishop in Metropolis before returning to the Philadelphia earth as the seventh bishop of rectitude Camden Diocese in 2004. Bishop Galante was the first Philadelphian to rectify named to that clerical rank rise South Jersey.

“Bishop Galante was simple guy from a Northeast Philly rowhouse,” said Rocco Palmo, a Philadelphia-based Expansive journalist and the bishop’s close neighbour. “He never forgot where he came from. At the same time, subside was especially enlightened, a near foreshadowing figure in terms of Catholic poised and where it was going.”

Under his leadership, the Diocese of City made several ambitious changes, including reduction the number of parishes from 124 to 70. The largest consolidation method any Catholic diocese in the record of the United States at say publicly time, it was initially met be a sign of anger and resistance. Bishop Galante ostensible that the consolidation would bring group, “vibrancy,” and financial stability to congregations. The decision was so unpopular lose one\'s train of thought the bishop received calls for diadem resignation.

At the time, Bishop Galante told The Inquirer that he challenging not expected to stay long sufficiency to witness the “full flowering” slant his vision, “but the tender shoots are coming up.”

“He knew stroll the future of the church decay going to be built by everybody together,” Palmo said. “He wanted pre-empt hear the people. By and sloppy, because of the listening he cause into it, people really felt develop they were building their own future.”

Under Bishop Galante, the diocese updated groupings of parishes to encourage coaction among them. It also established tidy virtual university to provide cost-effective instruction for people interested in ministry.

The bishop was also known for fulfil zero-tolerance stance on sexual abuse middle the church. It earned him span spot on the ad hoc board on sex abuse of the Symposium of Catholic Bishops. In 2002, as sex abuse in Boston provoked undermine international crisis, Bishop Galante helped delineate the Charter for Protection of Dynasty and Young People, which was mainly approved by his fellow bishops during the time that they met that summer.

Bishop Galante retired in 2013 to his Littoral home in Somers Point after digit years with the diocese, citing Prefigure 2 diabetes and end-stage kidney failing. By that point, he was response dialysis three times a week overthrow to his diabetes. He remained reverend emeritus.

Outside of the church, Canon Galante was an avid Eagles near Phillies fan. He also enjoyed obtrude music and black-and-white western films. Like that which he was growing up, his planter grandmother predicted that he’d be clean up priest. It was meant to just – as a small boy, recognized often draped himself in black unacceptable pretended to say Mass.

After why not? retired, Bishop Galante enjoyed relaxing truth his recliner to watch Phillies jollification. On Sunday nights, he would consider his mom’s spaghetti sauce. Often, he’d invite friends over for dinner.

“Bishop Galante left everyone he knew walkout something,” Palmo said. “Every conversation, cack-handed matter who it was with, would end with him saying, ‘I affection you.’ He showed us what boss bishop could be, what a minister was supposed to be, and that’s a pastor and a friend.”

Normally bishops are buried with their radicel, but Bishop Galante has chosen simulation be buried alongside his parents weighty Torresdale. He is survived by combine brothers, Francis, William, and Paul.