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Saturday, May 04, 2002

By The Associated Press

Pope John Paul II has named a new archbishop to a Pittsburgh post responsible for guiding many Byzantine rite followers across the United States.

Monsignor Basil Schott, 62, is a Pennsylvania native who has been serving in Ohio as bishop of Parma of the Ruthenians.

The Ruthenians are a Ukrainian people who lived under Hungarian rule through the centuries. Many of their descendants live in the United States and are Eastern rite Catholics, loyal to the pope.

Schott replaces Archbishop Judson Michael Procyk, former head of the nation's Byzantine-Ruthenian Church, who died last year. Procyk had fought unsuccessfully to restore the right to ordain married men as Eastern Catholic priests in the United States. That right had been taken away by the Vatican in 1929, although Eastern Catholic married men in Europe are still allowed to become priests.

Replacing Schott in Parma will be the Rev. John Kudrick. Kudrick had been serving in Pittsburgh in posts that included rector of St. Paul Cathedral.

Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh applauded the appointments of both men in a written statement issued yesterday, pledging prayers and support as they begin their new duties.

Schott took his vows in 1959 in a Franciscan Byzantine order. He was appointed to the Parma post in 1996.