When Archbishop Theodore McCarrick got word two weeks ago that the Pope was going to name one of his New Jersey priests a
bishop, he discovered that tracking down the cleric to break the good news was a bit tougher than he anticipated.
In the end, the archbishop of Newark located Monsignor Arthur J. Serratelli in the southern Italian town of Nocera where Serratelli
was visiting relatives. ''I was on a farm surrounded by chickens when I got the call," Serratelli said yesterday at a news conference
to announce that Pope John Paul II had appointed him an auxiliary bishop of the Newark archdiocese.
His reaction? ''Well," Serratelli said, "today is the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle -- also known as doubting Thomas. I felt just like him."
But the archbishop wasn't fibbing, and now the grandson of an Italian immigrant who grew up in Newark's Ironbound
neighborhood will continue a journey in the church that has taken him from an altar boy at Our Lady of Mount Carmel to priest, Rome-trained academic, seminary rector and now bishop.
It is an arc, said the youthful- looking 56-year-old, that he never would have contemplated even during his grammar school days
when he first dreamed of becoming a priest. ''Never in a million years," said the genial priest who laughed at himself when asked if
this was his first public appearance in bishop's attire, with full-length cassock, and purple sash and zucchetto, the distinctive skullcap: "Can you tell?"
Certainly, McCarrick welcomes the help. With 1.3 million Catholics to minister to in four counties, as well as his own busy schedule
as a national church leader and a frequent global emissary for the Pope, the archbishop leans on his four current auxiliary bishops
for a range of pastoral duties, from confirmations to administration of the country's seventh-largest Catholic diocese. The
bishop-elect, McCarrick said, "will be a tremendous help to me and to the other auxiliary bishops in the pastoral care of the church of Newark," McCarrick said.
Serratelli, who will be ordained a bishop at a service in Sacred Heart Cathedral Basilica Sept. 8, will be the regional bishop in Essex
County. Until then, Auxiliary Bishop Dominic Marconi will continue double-duty overseeing Essex as well as Union County.
Auxiliary Bishop David Arias is the regional bishop for Hudson County, Bishop Charles McDonnell covers Bergen County, and
Bishop Paul Bootkoski is the vicar general, McCarrick's administrative second- in-command for the entire archdiocese. The newest
member of the hierarchy has a rarefied academic pedigree that in recent years has been somewhat unusual for an auxiliary bishop. A
graduate of Seton Hall Prep and Seton Hall, where he majored in philosophy, Serratelli was ordained a priest in 1968 after studies
that included a stint at the Pontifical Gregorian University, known as "the Pope's Harvard," and at the prestigious Pontifical Biblical
Institute. Among his teachers at the institute was the highly regarded Jesuit, Carlo Maria Martini, who would eventually become
cardinal-archbishop of Milan and who is now considered the front-running Italian candidate to succeed John Paul.
Since his return to New Jersey, Serratelli has served as a Scripture professor at Immaculate Conception Seminary, formerly located
in Mahwah and now on the Seton Hall University campus in South Orange, and then in 1997 was named rector of St. Andrew
College Seminary at Seton Hall. In 1998 the Pope gave him the title of monsignor. While his area of expertise is Old Testament
studies, Serratelli is a popular leader of retreats where he focuses on teachings from the New Testament. Those retreat duties, he
said, will have to be curtailed as he juggles his new responsibilities as bishop with his job as seminary rector and professor.
But credentials and titles aside, Serratelli remains a child of Newark. His mother, Eva (his father, Pio, is deceased), still lives in the
Ironbound home his grandparents owned, and the bishop-elect speaks fluent Italian, in addition to Spanish.
And he is a son who knows about mothers: He managed to keep the news from Eva Serratelli until yesterday morning before the
press conference, resisting the temptation to tell her the night before the announcement. "I knew if I told her she won't sleep," he said.
