Bishop Thomas John Rodi of Biloxi goes Mobile (Alabama, that is.)

Bishop Thomas John Rodi of the diocese of Biloxi has been named the Archbishop of the archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama. From the Vatican's bollettino:

"[Today the Holy Father] Appointed Bishop Thomas John Rodi of Biloxi, U.S.A., as metropolitan archbishop of Mobile (area 59,467, population 1,680,384, Catholics 67,351, priests 127, permanent deacons 62, religious 179), U.S.A. The archbishop-elect was born in New Orleans, U.S.A. in 1949, he was ordained a priest in 1978 and consecrated a bishop in 2001. He succeeds Archbishop Oscar Hugh Lipscomb, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit."

Archbishop designate Rodi is a graduate of Georgetown, and has a degree in law from Tulane. He received his licentiate in canon law at Catholic University of America and taught canon law at Notre Dame seminary. Once again an extensively-educated and canonically-trained prelate gets the nod.

More coverage here from Whispers.

The Mobile Archdiocesan website has a nice welcome graphic on their homepage as well as these links:

• Press Release
• Biography
• Archbishop Lipscomb's Letter
• Archbishop Designate Rodi's Letter
• What Next?: "Archbishop Designate Rodi's installation ceremony will be held Friday, June 6th at 3:00 in the afternoon at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception."

A couple cool little details:

Archbishop-Emeritus Lipscomb and Archbishop-Designate Rodi will celebrate today’s 12:10 p.m. Mass at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

Archbishop [Designate] Rodi’s first name, Thomas, is now included in the prayer of the Eucharistic Canon at Masses celebrated within this diocese.

Major props to the Archdiocese of Mobile for a prompt, informative web presentation of the announcement.

Just as an aside, perhaps someone can help me out: why exactly is a diocese with less than 70k Catholics an archdiocese? No offense to the fine people of Mobile, but I just wonder how that works.

Secondly, it's very interesting to note that Abp-d. Rodi will continue to administer his old diocese of Biloxi by "decision of the Holy Father". The priest shortage has caused many dioceses to have a single priest ministering to multiple parishes, but I wonder here if we are seeing the first instance of a bishop administering multiple dioceses. Or this could just be a temporary, one-time thing. Either way, I'd like to see this decision discussed a bit.