Archbishop of New Orleans
Archbishop-elect James Francis Checchio, coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans, was born on 21 April 1966 in Camden, New Jersey, in the diocese of the same name. After attending Pope Paul VI High School in Haddon Township, he graduated from the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He carried out his ecclesiastical studies at the Pontifical North American College, and was awarded a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a master's degree in business administration at LaSalle University in Philadelphia. He was ordained a priest on 20 June 1992 for the Diocese of Camden. He held the following offices: parish vicar of Saint Peter in Merchantville in 1992, Saint Agnes from 1993 to 1995, and Saint Peter Celestine in 1996; defender of the bond at the Camden Tribunal in 1997; assistant director of the diocesan Public Relations and Communications Office from 1997 to 1998; special secretary to the bishops of Camden from 1997 to 1999; vice chancellor from 1997 to 2003; director of the diocesan Public Relations and Communications Office from 1998 to 2003; moderator of the Curia from 1999 to 2003; parish administrator of Holy Spirit in Atlantic City from 2001 to 2003; episcopal vicar for the administration of the Diocese of Camden from 2002 to 2003; vice rector for administration of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 2003 to 2006; and rector of the same College from 2006 to 2016. He was appointed Bishop of Metuchen on 8 March 2016, and received episcopal consecration the following 3 May.