Beloved " Hometown " Priest Msgr Joe Strickland Appointed Bishop For Diocese of Tyler Texas By Pope Benedict ( Links)

The Bishop Elect is on the left of Pope BenedictAt Roman noon today Pope Benedict through the Holy See announced the appointment of Mons. Joseph E. Strickland   as the new Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler in Texas   Msgr Joe Strickland, 54 is the current  vicar-general of Tyler. This is a somewhat rare event that some one is promoted from within a Diocese to Bishop. However Rocco Palmo in his extensive post on the announcement notes that this will be greeted with great joy in the this East Texas Diocese. See his post Tyler, Rejoice – “Father Joe” Named Hometown Bishop .On and the Bishop Elect has a blog. That diocese is in  purple above.  The Diocese borders Louisiana and Arkansas and runs west  approaching the out reaches of what is now metro Dallas. Though in the Baptist Bible belt of Texas it is a Diocese of rapid Catholic growth.The Diocese of Tyler  is one the youngest if not the youngest  I believe of the United States Dioceses in that it was created Dec. 12, 1986 and erected on Feb. 24, 1987.  "Father "Joe"  will be the 4th Bishop of this Diocese.Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia last year wrote how dynamic this Diocese was and described it in this informative post as the "Little Diocese that could " The Diocese will be having a press conference at 10 a..m. this saturday morning.Updates later