Bishop Blair announces personnel changes

5/31/2008

Bishop Leonard Blair of the Toledo Catholic Diocese has announced a number of personnel appointments, as well as the closing of three parishes - St. Mary, Antwerp; St. Joseph, Paulding, and St. John, Payne, Ohio - that will be merged into a newly created parish, Divine Mercy in Paulding. The Rev. G. Allan Fillman will serve as pastor.

Bishop Blair also announced the following personnel moves, effective July 1 unless noted otherwise:

• The Rev. Ronald Brickner will be parish chaplain and presbyteral moderator of Mother of Sorrows Parish in Put-in-Bay and St. Michael Parish, Kelleys Island, in addition to his responsibilities at St. Joseph Central Catholic High School in Fremont.

• The Rev. Adam Hertzfeld will be director of vocations for the diocese. He has been on a study leave at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

• The Rev. Kent Kaufman, pastor of Transfiguration of the Lord Parish, Upper Sandusky, will be pastor of All Saints Parish, Rossford.

• The Rev. Ronald Schock will be pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Assumption, Ohio. He currently is director of the office of vocations, priesthood, and consecrated life for the diocese as well as associate pastor of St. Rose Parish, Perrysburg.

• The Rev. Gary Walters, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Toledo, will be pastor of St. Mary Parish, Tiffin, and St. Pius X Parish, Sycamore, Ohio.

• The Rev. Joseph Poggemeyer will serve as pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Toledo, and director of religious formation at Central Catholic High School, Toledo. Father Poggemeyer has served as director of formation for the college division of the Pontifical College Josephinum Seminary in Columbus since 2005.

• The Rev. David Reinhart is president of the newly created Kateri School System within the Blessed Kateri Deanery, effective immediately. He will no longer be president of Cardinal Stritch High School, which is part of the Kateri School System.

• Deacon William Lochotzki, who serves at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, Toledo, is granted senior status, or retirement, effective Wednesday.

• The Rev. Richard Philiposki of the Society of Christ religious order, will be pastor of St. Adalbert and St. Hedwig parishes in Toledo effective June 23. Bishop Blair made the appointment upon the recommendation of the Rev. Pawel Bandurski, provincial of the Society of Christ.

The Toledo diocese has 306,532 members in 19 northwest Ohio counties.