NYC priest ordained Albany’s 10th Catholic bishop

April 14, 2014 By Mary Esch Associated Press

Screen Shot 2014-04-14 at 9.47.18 AM.png

Share this:

ALBANY— The cathedral filled with applause as New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan placed the bishop’s miter on the head of the Rev. Monsignor Edward Scharfenberger, ordained Thursday as the 10th bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Albany.

Hundreds of white-robed priests and 34 bishops from across New York and New England participated in the Ordination Mass at the red-stone neo-Gothic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception near Albany’s capitol complex.

Scharfenberger, 65, of New York City, was appointed by Pope Francis to succeed Bishop Howard Hubbard, who was the longest-tenured bishop of a single diocese in the nation when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. He served 37 years.

During the ordination ceremony, Scharfenberger lay face-down before the altar as the Litany of the Saints, a formal prayer of the Roman Catholic Church, was sung by a cantor and the congregation. Then he bowed before the altar as the 34 bishops passed in front of him and lay hands on his head.

Dolan placed the miter, the ceremonial pointed bishop’s hat, on Scharfenberger’s head. He put the bishop’s ring on his finger and gave him a crosier, a stylized staff that looks like a shepherd’s crook and symbolizes the bishop’s pastoral stewardship over his congregation. Scharfenberger then sat in the bishop’s throne.

The Albany diocese has about 330,000 parishioners in 14 counties.

Scharfenberger was vicar for Queens when he was chosen as bishop. He has held various roles in the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Scharfenberger, who speaks five languages, was born in Brooklyn, the oldest of five children of German immigrants. He grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in a family that ran a church goods business specializing in bishops’ crosiers, crosses and miters.

In an Albany news conference in February, Scharfenberger said he draws inspiration from Pope Francis’ informal style of leadership. That was evident Thursday at the end of the 2½ hour Mass, when Scharfenberger took off his ornate hat and talked to the congregation.

“All I ask of you is that you bring the best out of me, and I’ll bring the best out of you,” he said.