News

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced Thursday that the Pope accepted the resignation of 80-year-old Bishop Andrew Pataki of Passaic for reasons of age.

Father Gerald Dino, 67, of the Passaic Eparchy and pastor of St. George Parish, Linden, New Jersey, will succeed Bishop Skurla in Van Nuys.

Bishop Skurla, 51, will be installed Jan 29 at the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, in Passaic. Bishop-designate Dino will be ordained and installed March 27 at St. Helen Catholic Church in Phoenix.

The U.S. Eparchy of Passaic of the Ruthenians comprises Catholics of the Byzantine-Ruthenian rite in New Jersey, the District of Columbia and some 25 states, primarily on the East Coast and as far south as Florida.

Bishop Skurla, a native of Duluth, Minnesota, earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in New York in 1981. He attended Mary Immaculate Seminary in Northampton, Pennsylvania, where he earned a master of divinity degree in 1986 and a master of theology degree in 1987.

He was professed as a member of the Franciscans in Sybertsville, Pennsylvania, in 1985, and ordained a priest in 1987. In 1996, he was incardinated into the Eparchy of Van Nuys and named bishop of Van Nuys in 2002.

Gerald Dino was born in Binghamton, New York in 1940. He received a bachelor's degree from Duquesne University in 1961, and a master of divinity degree from Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary, Pittsburgh, in 1965.

He was ordained a priest for the Eparchy of Passaic in 1965. He received a licentiate degree in Oriental Ecclesiastical Studies from the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, in 1972, and completed graduate work in religious communication from Loyola University, New Orleans, in 1973.

The U.S. Eparchy of Van Nuys of the Ruthenians was established in 1981, and canonically inaugurated in 1982. It includes parishes in the states of Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii and Alaska.