A crescendo of whispers suggests that Denver’s new Catholic Archbishop will be named by the Vatican early Tuesday morning.
The lapse of nine months since Archbishop Charles Chaput left the calm Archdiocese of Denver to lead the troubled one in Philadelphia has church .
Chaput was chosen for the Philadelphia job over the July 4 weekend last year. He began work there in September.
It typically takes nine months to a year for a pope to name a new archbishop, and speculation here is entering the the feverish stage.
The most frequently floated names are Bishop Samuel J. Aquila of the Diocese of Fargo, N.D., Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix, and R. Walker Nickless, Bishop of Sioux City, Iowa.
If any of the three are selected, it will represent a homecoming, of sorts.
Aquila, 62, was ordained as a priest in the Denver archdiocese. He was founding rector of St. John Vianney Seminary, which has gotten attention as a training ground for young, orthodox priests.
Olmsted, 65, too, has significant ties to Denver. He earned a degree in philosophy from St. Thomas Seminary here in 1969 and sits on the board of the current diocesan seminary, St. John Vianney, and another local Catholic institution, the Augustine Institute.
Born in Denver, Nickless graduated from Bishop Machebeuf High School in 1965. He attended St. Thomas Seminary and the University of Denver and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Denver in 1973. Before his appointment as Bishop, he served as pastor of Our Lady of Fatima parish in Lakewood and as Vicar General of the Archdiocese.
