Local News

Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley to reportedly be replaced by Providence bishop

Multiple outlets reported that O'Malley will leave the fourth largest archdiocese in the country after more than 20 years.

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley delivers his Easter Sunday message during Solemn Mass, at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in March. (Photo by Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

By Molly Farrar

August 4, 2024

After more than twenty years leading the fourth largest archdiocese in the country, Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley could be leaving his current role as the Archbishop of Boston, according to some reports.

A source within the archdiocese told Boston.com that a press conference will be held Monday at 10 a.m. to announce a change in leadership but did not comment on any rumors circulating about O’Malley’s status.

Rocco Palmo, a Catholic writer, initially said on X Sunday afternoon that Pope Francis will name Providence Bishop Richard Henning as the new archbishop. The Boston Globe and NBC News confirmed the news with anonymous sources. Palmo called the pick a “shock.”

Henning, 59, became the leader of the Providence diocese in May of last year. He previously served in New York and is fluent in Spanish and Italian and is literate in French, Greek, and Hebrew, according to an online bio from the diocese.

O’Malley was appointed as archbishop in 2003 and, at 80, has already led Greater Boston’s Roman Catholic community for longer than expected. (Catholic bishops are asked to retire at age 75, and 80 is also the age when bishops are no longer eligible to vote for a new pope.)

Previously, he served in Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and then in Fall River starting in 1992 amid sexual abuse scandals involving Rev. James Porter. In 2002, the Globe reported that O’Malley pioneered new policies on clergy sexual abuse and settled more than 101 cases against Porter.

O’Malley played a similar role in Boston in 2003, where a similar, wide-spread scandal “victimized hundreds, eroded church attendance, and has led the church in Boston to the brink of bankruptcy,” the Globe reported at the time. He replaced Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who resigned when it was exposed that he covered up the sexual abuse of children.

Earlier this year, O’Malley, ordained in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, reflected in the Globe on his decades at the helm of the Archdiocese of Boston and said he’d depart “soon.”

Eric MacLeish, a attorney who represented hundreds of clergy abuse victims, told the Globe in the same story that O’Malley was compassionate, met with all of his clients, and “did the right thing.”

“We were in a terrible crisis,” O’Malley told in the Globe about his start. “I think we’ve come a long way from there towards establishing a sense of peace.”

On its website, the diocese praises O’Malley for leadership decisions including becoming the first cardinal in the world to launch a personal blog in 2006, his work against abortion rights, and his outreach to young Catholics.