Community Corner

Former Sacred Heart Parishioner Named Auxiliary Boston Bishop

Msgr. Robert P. Deeley who grew up in Belmont named by Pope Benedict XVI.

Msgr. Robert Deeley, who grew up in Belmont and attended mass and school at Watertown's Sacred Heart Parish, was named today, Nov. 9, by Pope Benedict XVI as an Auxiliary Bishop of Boston, according to BostonCatholic.com, the website of the Archdiocese of Boston. 

“I am humbled by the Holy Father’s confidence in me by appointing me to the episcopacy," said Deeley at a press conference today in Boston.

"Cardinal Seán kindly provided me the opportunity last year to return home to Boston and be of service to the Archdiocese," he said.

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Seán Cardinal O’Malley will ordain Bishop-elect Deeley to the episcopacy on Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.

Born in Cambridge, Deeley grew up in Belmont as the fourth of five sons of Michael and Mary Deeley, who were born in County Galway, Ireland. 

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The family belonged to Watertown's Sacred Heart Parish where Deeley and his brothers attended school.  

Deeley attended Matignon High School in North Cambridge where he graduated in 1964.

After graduating from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and many years of post-graduate study, Deeley was ordained to the priesthood on July 14, 1973 at Sacred Heart, his home parish. Deeley served as a Judicial Vicar from 1989 to 1999.

He was named Pastor of St. Ann’s Parish in the Wollaston section of Quincy in 1999. The next year he assumed the presidency of the Canon Law Society of America, in 2000, a mark of the esteem held for him by his colleagues in canon law. 

He most recent assignment was in Rome beginning in September 2004, first on a temporary basis as an external collaborator, and then, at the request of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) as an Official of the Congregation.


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