Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, KY, has been elected USCCB president. As a priest of the Diocese of Allentown, he served on the PCC’s Community Action Department, Social Welfare Department and Administrative Board. His service to the PCC spanned two decades (from 1977-1998), and we wish him well in his new role!
From Catholic News Service- The newly elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been a bishop for nearly 14 years, but it’s as priest, family member and social worker that he describes himself.
By way of introduction to American Catholics, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., talked about his upbringing in the coal regions of northeastern Pennsylvania, of spending most of his priesthood as a social worker, and of caring for his older brother, George, who had Down syndrome, for 12 years after their mother died. George Kurtz died in 2002.
He takes obvious pride in his identity as both a coal-town native and a transplanted southerner, after serving as bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., from 1999 to 2007, when he became archbishop of Louisville.
