Dennis Sullivan Installed as Camden Diocese Bishop

The Camden Diocese officially has a new bishop after Dennis Sullivan was installed Tuesday before a full church of supporters.

Sullivan, who will head the six-county diocese, was made bishop during an afternoon Mass at St. Agnes Church in Gloucester Township. A selection of high-ranking Catholic Church officials, plus an interfaith contingent of local religious leaders, attended the Mass, the South Jersey Times reports.

As part of the ritual, Sullivan knocked on the church door and was ushered inside before an archbishop read Pope Benedict XVI's order making Sullivan bishop.

Sullivan, 67, who was ordained as a priest in 1971, has been an auxiliary bishop of New York since 2004. Born in the Bronx, NY, Sullivan has served in the Archdiocese of New York, the second-largest archdiocese in the country, since his ordination, including his current title as vicar general.

The new bishop takes over for Joseph A. Galante. Galante's eight-year tenure as the diocese's bishop was marked with controversy, as he presided over the consolidation of about half the parishes in the diocese. He has been in declining health, and announced in a 2011 letter to the diocese that he had been suffering from kidney disease, which required daily dialysis treatments.

Sullivan will lead more than 70 parishes in Camden, Gloucester, Cumberland, Salem, Atlantic and Cape May counties.