– Catholic Herald, Rome – Pope Francis named Bishop Michael W. Fisher  – an auxiliary of Washington, DC, ordained to the episcopacy by Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl – to the troubled Diocese of Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday.

The 62-year-old Bishop Fisher (pictured above, photo © Archdiocese of Washington) received his episcopal consecration from Cardinal Wuerl on 29 June 2018 – nine days after the news of credible and substantiated sexual abuse allegations against Wuerl’s predecessor, Theodore Edgar “Uncle Ted” McCarrick, had their first official acknowledgment from Church authorities in New York.

Prior to his consecration, Bishop Fisher had served for many years in parish ministry and in the Washington, DC chancery, where McCarrick made him Vicar General for the Apostolates in 2005.

He succeeds Bishop Richard J. Malone, who resigned late last year, after more than after more than 18 months of intense public scrutiny. Albany’s Bishop Edward Scharfenberger took the reins temporarily, and oversaw the early phases of Buffalo’s bankruptcy, which the diocese sought in February of this year.

Late last month, New York’s Attorney General sued the Diocese of Buffalo, two former bishops, and the man who was serving then as Apostolic Administrator of the diocese, alleging abuse coverup and misuse of charitable funds in support of clerical bad actors.

Bishop Fisher holds the BS degree in Business Administration and Accounting from the University of Maryland, which he took in 1984. He worked as a comptroller for a psychiatric practice in Bethesda, Md, before discerning a vocation to the priesthood. He trained at Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Washington by Cardinal James A. Hickey at St. Matthew’s Cathedral on 23 June 1990.

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