Wisconsin priest to become USCCB associate general secretary

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Msgr. Jeffrey D. Burrill, a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, will become associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops March 1.

The appointment was announced Feb. 3 by Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, USCCB general secretary.

“I look forward to learning the job and working with the Msgr. Bransfield and the executive staff and doing the best I can to implement the bishops mission and goals at the conference,” Msgr. Burrill told Catholic News Service Feb. 8.

He explained that while the appointment begins March 1, he planned to commute between Wisconsin, where he is pastor of St. Bronislava Church in Plover, in the central part of the state, and Washington until his term as pastor ends July 1.

“Msgr. Burrill brings a unique combination of pastoral skills and leadership experience to complement and strengthen our service to each bishop and to the conference as a whole,” Msgr. Bransfield said in a statement announcing the appointment.

A native of Marshfield, Wisconsin, Msgr. Burrill has a bachelor of arts degree from St. Mary’s College Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, and a bachelor of sacred theology from Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained in 1998 for the Diocese of La Crosse.

In 1999, he earned a licentiate in ecumenical theology from the Angelicum, or Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, which also is in Rome.

Msgr. Burrill has served as pastor of St. Bronislava Church since 2013. He was at the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 2009 to 2013, serving originally as director of apostolic formation and subsequently as the Carl J. Peter chair of homiletics, formation adviser and director of media relations.

In the La Crosse Diocese, he served as pastor of the parishes of St. Mary, in Duran, Holy Rosary in Lima and Sacred of Jesus in Mondovi from 2001 to 2009. He also taught and was chaplain at Regis High School and Middle School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for two years prior to his parish assignments.

In the diocese, he was a regional vicar for six years, served two terms on the diocesan priests’ council and also was the diocese’s ecumenical officer and a member of the seminary admissions board.

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