Vatican City, May 12, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Pope Benedict XVI announced today that Archbishop William Joseph Levada, until now Archbishop of San Francisco, is succeeding him as the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Archbishop William Joseph Levada is a fourth-generation Californian, born in Long Beach on June 15, 1936.
Except for a three-year interval when his family lived in Texas, he attended elementary and high schools in Long Beach, followed by four years of Seminary College in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
In 1958, he was sent to pursue his seminary formation in Rome at the North American College, and took his graduate theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University, receiving a doctorate in sacred theology magna cum laude.
Following ordination to the priesthood in St. Peter's Basilica on December 20, 1961, he spent five years in parish work in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, including part-time high school teaching and college campus ministry.