Pope John Paul II has appointed Chorbishop Gregory J. Mansour, who previously served in Los Angeles, as the new bishop of the Maronite Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn, N.Y.

The pope also accepted the resignation of St. Maron Bishop Stephen Hector Doueihi, 76. An eparchy is the Eastern-rite equivalent to a diocese in the Latin-rite church.

Bishop-designate Mansour is chancellor and protosyncellus of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles; a protosyncellus is analogous to the role of vicar general in the Latin church. He is also rector of St. Raymond Co-Cathedral in St. Louis. (Our Lady of Lebanon transferred its headquarters from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 2001.)

"It is always an honor to have someone from the local community be appointed as a bishop, and especially someone like Bishop Gregory who is a good person and a good priest," said Father Abdallah Zaidan, rector of Our Lady of Lebanon in Los Angeles, who has known the bishop-designate for 15 years. "He a has a love of God and people, he is a good and sensitive listener, a good spiritual leader, and he has excellent administrative skills."

Born in Flint, Mich., in 1955, Bishop-designate Mansour went to grade school, high school and college in the Flint area, and graduated from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo with a bachelor's degree in health education.

He studied for the priesthood at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Seminary in Washington and was ordained to the priesthood in 1982. The bishop-designate also has a bachelor's in theology from The Catholic University of America, Washington, and a licentiate in spiritual theology from the Gregorian University in Rome.

He served in Los Angeles from 1994 to 2001. In 2002 he participated in a conference in Southern California of Maronites from around the world.

"We want to impress upon the American government the beauty of Lebanon, the civilized Lebanon," then-Chorbishop Mansour said. "We want to impress upon the Lebanese government that its people are longing for human rights and freedom to express even dissent. And we want a better humanitarian outreach to Lebanon and to the Middle East Christians."

The appointment of Bishop-designate Mansour means that both U.S. Maronite eparchies will be headed by American-born bishops. Bishop Robert J. Shaheen, who was born in Connecticut, heads the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, which covers 34 states.

---CNS and Mike Nelson