Antigonish’s new bishop says he’s excited to meet the people of his diocese.
Bishop Wayne Kirkpatrick was formally installed during a ceremony at St. Ninian Cathedral in Antigonish Feb. 3.
Kirkpatrick tells The Hawk his first job is to get to know the people and the place.
“I first need to get to know the place in order to have a better idea of what direction to take,” he says. “Any decisions we reach will be reached by consensus with our priests and the people who know the situation on the ground.”
Kirkpatrick says he’s also excited to learn about the area, and he’s going to be working to get parishioners to come back, as well as welcoming new ones into the fold.
He says he wants to teach people of the diocese more about the faith.
“That’s called evangelization, so the idea that there’s a lot about our faith we don’t really fully understand, why we do certain things,” he says. “I think if people had a better indication of that they may be drawn closer to their faith.”
Kirkpatrick says he hopes to revitalize faith in the Diocese of Antigonish.
The Ontario native, who most recently served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Toronto, replaces Brian Dunn to become Antigonish’s 10th bishop.
