Arkansas To get New Catholic Bishop This Week?

From the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Naming of bishop for state at hand, Catholic blog says

A prominent Catholic Web log is reporting that the roughly 116, 000 Catholics in Arkansas will get a new bishop soon.
“[T ] he seventh bishop of Arkansas’ statewide diocese will be named shortly, likely within the week,” wrote Rocco Palmo on Tuesday at “Whispers in the Loggia” at whispersintheloggia. blogspot. com.
Palmo, a Catholic journalist in Philadelphia, has a three-year track record of learning of bishop appointments before any official announcement is made. So far, he estimates he has accurately reported about 15 such appointments were imminent. Palmo also writes for The Tablet, an international Catholic weekly publication.

“[T ] he choice is reported to have fallen on a veteran pastor not lacking in administrative experience... a Texan just short of his 50 th birthday,” Palmo wrote in his blog. “Described as a ‘people person,’ the presumptive bishopelect is said to be ‘neither liberal nor conservative’ and, yes, ‘a man of prayer.’” The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock has been without a bishop for 20 months, making it the American diocese with the longest current vacancy. In May 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed the Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, then the bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock, to be the bishop of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., which covers the western suburbs of Chicago.

Monsignor J. Gaston Hebert, who is the Little Rock diocesan administrator until a new bishop is appointed, said he has been getting calls from priests across the state since Palmo’s report came out.
“I don’t know if there is any validity to it or not,” Hebert said. “I can assure you, without any falsification, that I haven’t been informed of anything. And until I’m informed of it, it ain’t official.”


Perhaps this means the Diocese of Shreveport Louisiana will not be far behind.

Here is Rocco's entry they are referencing: