Bishop John Oliver Barres

Bishop John Oliver Barres, Bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, USA, was born on 20 September 1960 in Port Chester in the Archdiocese of New York. After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he obtained a bachelor's degree in English Literature at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1982 and a Master of Business Administration in Management at the New York University Graduate School of Business in 1984. Having entered seminary, he pursued theological studies at Theological College of The Catholic University of America in Washington, where he obtained a licentiate in Systematic Theology in 1989. Subsequently, he obtained a licentiate in Canon Law and a licentiate and doctorate in Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome from 1996 to 1999. He was ordained a priest on 21 October 1989 for the diocese of Wilmington, Delaware. After priestly ordination he served as parochial vicar of Holy Family Parish in Newark from 1989 to 1992 and of Saint Elizabeth Parish in Wilmington from 1992 to 1996; vice chancellor from 1999 to 2000; chancellor from 2000 to 2009; and pastor of Holy Child Parish in Wilmington in 2009. He was also a member of the presbyteral council and the college of consultors. In 2005 he was appointed Prelate of Honour of His Holiness. Appointed Bishop of Allentown on 27 May 2009, he received episcopal consecration on the following 30 July. Within the episcopal conference he was president of the Commission for Divine Cult and member of the Committee for Evangelization and Catechesis. From 2013 he was episcopal delegate for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. In addition to English, he speaks Italian, French, and Spanish.