The U.S. bishops’ conference released the following message this morning:
WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI has named 60-year-old Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as archbishop of Indianapolis.
The appointment was publicized in Washington, October 18, by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Archbishop Tobin is a member of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists). He succeeds Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, OSB, a Benedictine monk, who resigned from pastoral governance of the Indianapolis Archdiocese in 2011 for health reasons. Indianapolis Auxiliary Bishop Christopher Coyne has been apostolic administrator of the archdiocese since 2011.
Joseph William Tobin, a native of Detroit, was born May 3, 1952, the oldest of 13 children. He professed temporary vows as a Redemptorist in 1972, and perpetual vows in 1976. He was ordained a priest for the Redemptorist Congregation in 1978.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Holy Redeemer College, Waterford, Wisconsin, and master’s degrees in religious education and divinity from Mount St. Alphonsus Major Seminary, Esopus, New York.
Assignments after ordination included parochial vicar, Holy Redeemer Parish, Detroit, 1979-1984, and pastor of Holy Redeemer, 1984-1990. He served as pastor of St. Alphonsus Parish, Chicago, 1990-1991.
He was elected general consultor of the Rome-based Redemptorists Fathers in 1991, and general superior for two terms in 1997. During a sabbatical year after his terms in leadership, he was named to his Vatican position, August 2, 2010, and ordained an archbishop October 9, 2010.
The Indianapolis Archdiocese includes 2,621,455 people, of which 227,699, or nine percent, are Catholic.
