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Pope John Paul II has named an Encino pastor, Msgr. Gerald Wilkerson, a new auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, with special responsibility for the San Fernando Valley area.
The papal appointment, announced Wednesday by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, fills an opening that has been vacant for 16 months and brings to five the number of auxiliary bishops in the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese.
Wilkerson, 59, will oversee the archdiocese's San Fernando Pastoral Region, which includes about 50 parishes from Palmdale to Woodland Hills to Highland Park.
Wilkerson was considered the leading candidate to succeed Bishop Armando X. Ochoa, who was named the bishop of El Paso last year. Mahony had immediately appointed Wilkerson as the interim administrator of the region, headquartered in Mission Hills.
Like all auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese, Wilkerson will report to Mahony. He will be consecrated in January at the 2,400-member Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino, where he has been senior pastor for the last dozen years.
In his inaugural news conference as a bishop-elect, Wilkerson spoke of the "joyful call" to the priesthood and poked fun at himself by saying he was first shocked and then terrified when told he was to be made a bishop.
In fact, he said that he slept only three hours the night the word came from Rome a week ago and that he hasn't had a good night's sleep since....