‘I COME WITH GREAT JOY’

BREAKING NEWS: Pope Leo names auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston as 11th Bishop of Albany; will replace Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, who has led Diocese since 2014

Bishop Mark O’Connell, newly named 11th bishop of the Albany Diocese, holds a news conference on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, at the Pastoral Center in Albany, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist (Courtesy photo of CINDY SCHULTZ)

Bishop Mark W. O’Connell had just finished saying Mass at the Carmelite Monastery in Roxbury, Mass., and was having a bite to eat when he got the call Oct. 11.

“I have been saying Mass with these same women for years. So afterwards the tradition is one of them talks to me while I eat breakfast,” said Bishop O’Connell. “I am with Sister Bernadette and she is saying, ‘Any word? Any word? Aren’t you going somewhere?’ and the phone rings and it is 202, which is Washington’s area code. 

“I just didn’t know where, and the nuncio said to me, ‘Are you in good shape?’ I said yes. He said well you can move to Albany. I have just now learned how to pronounce ‘ALL-bany.’ Somewhere in this thing I am going to pronounce it ‘AL-bany.’ Maybe it is the Canadian in me.”

What Bishop O’Connell had known for a little over a week, became official on Oct. 20 as he was named the 11th Bishop of Albany. Bishop O’Connell, who is currently the Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia for the Archdiocese of Boston, will succeed Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, who has led the Diocese of Albany since 2014. Bishop Scharfenberger, 77, had submitted his resignation to Pope Francis in 2023 when he turned 75, which is required by canon law. 

“Bishop O’Connell is a man with great depth and breadth of pastoral, canonical and communication skills and experience,” said Bishop Scharfenberger. “We welcome him with open hearts and pray for many years of good health and joyful presence among us.”

The appointment officially was announced at 6 a.m. on Oct. 20 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. Bishop O’Connell’s installation Mass is scheduled to take place on Friday,

Dec. 5. 

It was during a free-flowing conversation with employees of the Pastoral Center, that included emotion and lots of laughter, that Bishop O’Connell shared the story of how he heard the news. Bishop O’Connell said the nuncio knew he would accept the position.   

“He has known me for a while and he knew that I wanted something like this,” Bishop O’Connell said before the official press conference later in the day. “Something that fits my talents, my experience.”

Bishop O’Connell will take over a Diocese that Bishop Scharfenberger, who now becomes Apostolic Administrator before becoming Bishop Emeritus, has shepherded through challenging times: the hundreds of abuse cases filed under the Child Victims Act, the allegations of abuse and mishandling by Bishop Howard Hubbard, bankruptcy, which the Diocese entered in 2023, the fallout from the collapse of the St. Clare’s pension fund and the recently launched Remade for Mission initiative.

As daunting as that sounds, Bishop O’Connell, who likes to be called “Bishop Mark,” might be the perfect pastor for the job. In the press conference, Bishop O’Connell talked about being a brand-new canon lawyer in Boston in 2001, and just six months later, the abuse scandal and coverup rocked that city, that archdiocese and the nation. 

“I was a brand-new canon lawyer in the eye of the storm... it’s such a part of my life. I always feel very blessed because of all my time there. The timing on that is that God has blessed me with being part of the solution and not the problem,” said Bishop O’Connell, who later as judicial vicar would prosecute the priest abuse cases and meet with victim-survivors.

He was also part of the downsizing of the Archdiocese of Boston as well.

“In Boston we had way too many parishes; everybody had moved. There were like 12 parishes within a small area,” he said. “So I did that too. We went through two rounds of that. One is commonly known as a disaster, it was done very poorly, and the other one was much better. I have learned lessons from both of those. I have been in all these circumstances that make me think, ‘OK, they match what some of the needs that I can see here.’ I come with experience. I come, I think, with confidence. And I come with great joy because none of that ever affected my faith or my joy.”

Although Bishop O’Connell didn’t speak specifically about certain abuse cases or St. Clare’s, he did briefly comment, however, on the Remade for Mission initiative.

“I thank Bishop Scharfenberger for getting people talking about it,” Bishop O’Connell said. “He has initiated a program that has people self-reflect on their own parish and, although I will pause that program until I learn more about the Diocese of Albany, I know what works is that a parish that is hurting needs to be looked at as more than a statistic and they need to contemplate their future with themselves and then present that future.”

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Bishop O’Connell, 61, was born in Toronto, Ontario, on June 25, 1964, to Thomas F. and Margaret M. O’Connell, both American citizens. His father was the head librarian at York University in Toronto. Bishop Connell has two brothers and one sister. The family returned to Massachusetts when Bishop O’Connell was 12, his father taking the librarian job at Boston College.

“We were a religious family. My uncle was a priest (Father David Delaney), my aunt (Sister Jean Delaney, OP) is a nun, my other aunt had 11 kids, my uncle’s uncle was a priest, my father’s cousin was a priest,” Bishop ­O’Connell said. “We sat together in the same pew in the same order every Sunday. We always prayed together.”

Bishop O’Connell also talked about family trips from Toronto to Boston which always included a stop in Albany. 

“So, hello Albany, we don’t know each other yet but in some ways you have always, always been a part of my life,” he said. “I grew up in Toronto … and every year we would load up the station wagon and drive from Toronto to Boston and Boston to Toronto and every single time, we stayed here at a place called Schrafft’s Motor Inn, which is no longer there. I already have some cherished memories of Albany. Little did I know or suspect I would be the bishop of this place.”

Bishop O’Connell graduated from Dover-Sherborn High School in Dover, Mass., in 1982, earned a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Boston College in 1986, then began to study for the priesthood at Saint John’s Seminary in Boston.

“I am one of those cradle Catholics,” he added. “I went to Boston College knowing from Day 1 that I was going to be a priest. Then I went right into seminary, and I was ordained at 25 years old. I am a lifer. I don’t know anything else.”

On June 16, 1990, Bishop ­O’Connell was ordained to the priesthood at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston by Cardinal Bernard Law. He served five years at St. Barbara Parish in Woburn, Mass., and two years at St. Mary of the Annunciation in Danvers, Mass. He continued his studies in Rome in Canon Law in 1997 and received his doctorate in canon law (JCD) in 2002 from the Università della Santa Croce. From 2001 to 2007 he served as Assistant to the Moderator of the Curia for Canonical Affairs in the Archdiocese of Boston. Between 2007 and 2016 he served as Judicial Vicar and as a member of the faculty at both Saint John’s Seminary and Pope Saint John XXIII National Seminary. From 2011 to 2014, he was a co-host on the daily radio program “The Good Catholic Life,” broadcast on radio station WQOM in Boston.

On June 3, 2016, Pope Francis appointed Bishop O’Connell as an auxiliary bishop of Boston and titular bishop of Gigthi in Tripolitana. After his ordination to the episcopacy on Aug. 24, 2016, he served as pastor of St. Theresa Parish in North Reading, Mass., and as the Regional Bishop of the North Region of the Archdiocese of Boston covering 60 parishes. He became the Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia of the Archdiocese in 2023. He is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People and along with Bishop John P. Dolan of Phoenix is a nominee for chair-elect of the committee, which will be voted on during the bishops’ upcoming 2025 plenary assembly in Baltimore in November.

“I have had the blessing over the last year to work with Bishop Mark O’Connell. He is a remarkably capable man and very humble,” said Archbishop Richard G. Henning of the Archdiocese of Boston. “He loves people and he loves the priests of our Archdiocese. He has served Boston joyfully and effectively for decades. While we are sorry to lose him here in Boston, we rejoice with the clergy, religious and lay faithful of the Diocese of Albany. We are sending you our best and wishing you and your new bishop every blessing.”

Bishop O’Connell also started a podcast in September called “Listening to Catholic Women,” in which he conducts interviews with Catholic women about their faith and their roles in the Catholic Church. The podcast is described as “an exercise in ‘synodality,’ mutual collaborative listening, guided by the Holy Spirit, in which all of the faithful have something to learn from each other, in order to know what God is saying to the Church.”

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During the Oct. 20 afternoon press conference, Bishop ­O’Connell thanked his many mentors including Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who served as Archbishop of Boston from 2003 to 2024 and as president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors from 2014 to 2025; Archbishop Henning; Monsignor Cornelius M. McRae, a longtime priest in Boston and the former rector of Pope John XXIII National Seminary; Father Cornelius Heery; his parents and brothers and sisters, and Father Paul Soper, director of clergy personnel for the Archdiocese of Boston.  

As he neared the end of prepared marks and before taking questions from the media, Bishop O’Connell talked about spreading God’s grace in the turbulent times that we live in. It was a message that should resonate with all the faithful of the Diocese of Albany.

“We are living in chaotic times, but evidence of God’s grace is all around us, and I plan on showing the good people of Albany this evidence of God’s grace and I ask you to point out that evidence to me. Let us show each other the beauty of God’s grace in the midst of what I call, chaotic times. In the midst of bankruptcy, there is shame and there is sadness, but there is also a chance to acknowledge sinfulness and continue to reach out and love those that have been so terribly hurt. 

“There is an opportunity in bankruptcy that the church is better, stronger when we do this. In the midst of division in the world, we have the opportunity to build bridges of faith. In the midst of suspicion, we have an opportunity to gain trust. … What Pope Francis taught us with synodality, what Pope Leo is continuing to teach us with synodality. Pope Leo continues to gain the trust that comes from people truly being heard, being listened to, being valued. This is what we strive in the Diocese of Albany to do, to value the dignity of every living person in all stages of life. This is a hint of whom I pray I will bring here with me.”

Then with his voice filling with emotion he added: “I’m giving you my heart. I’m giving you my faith. I’m giving you my joy. I so love every single thing about being a priest. I have always, always been a happy priest. I have learned to love being a bishop and I pledge here today to learn and to love the people of ­Albany.”