The Brooklyn Vicariate for Black Catholic Concerns & The Office of Multicultural Diversity Catholics of African Ancestry – Haitian American Apostolate Ministry Diocese of Rockville Centre Invites you to the annual Black History Month Mass of Thanksgiving Concelebrant & Homilist Bishop Joseph N. Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Vicar General, Vice President of the National Black Catholic Congress & Postulator of the Cause for Fr. Augustus Tolton Along with Concelebrating Bishops & Priests Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, 4:30PM Cultural, 5:00PM Mass Immaculate Conception Center, 7200 Douglaston Parkway, Douglaston, NY 11362 The Most Rev. Joseph N. Perry, J.C.L., D.D. Bishop Joseph Perry was appointed, during the pontificate of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, Titular Bishop of Lead (an historic former See in South Dakota) and Auxiliary to his Eminence, Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, on May 5, 1998, His Episcopal consecration took place June 29, 1998, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral. His duties, currently, see him as Episcopal Vicar for one of six Vicariates of the Archdiocese of Chicago, a jurisdiction that covers currently 70 parishes, 27 parochial schools, 2 Missions and an Oratory. Bishop Perry, originally, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, was ordained by the late Archbishop William Edward Cousins, May 24, 1975 at St. John Cathedral, Milwaukee. After an eighteen month assignment as associate pastor of St. Nicholas Parish, Milwaukee, he was assigned to the Tribunal offices of the Archdiocese in December 1976 and was sent for graduate studies in canon law at The Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. His priestly ministry has been spent with ecclesiastical law and education working primarily in the church courts as advocate, then as judge in the court of appeals that services the suffragan Dioceses of Superior, LaCrosse, Green Bay and Madison, and as conciliation and arbitration clerk. In 1983, he was appointed judicial vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, a post he held for two six year terms until his appointment as pastor of All Saints Parish, Milwaukee, in June 1995. He served as the chaplain of the St.Thomas More Lawyers Society of Wisconsin an association of Catholic lawyers and judges. Until his appointment as bishop, he was also adjunct professor of canon law studies at Marquette University Law School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Sacred Heart Seminary, Hales Corners, Wisconsin. As satellites to his duties as auxiliary bishop, he functions as adjunct professor canon law at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois and associate judge in the Second Instance Court of Appeals for the six Dioceses in the state of Illinois configured to the Province of Chicago. Bishop Perry also serves as Vice-President of the Board for the National Black Catholic Congress, Baltimore, Maryland. January 28, 2010, Cardinal Francis George appointed Bishop Perry Postulator for the Diocesan Phase of the Cause for Sainthood of Father Augustus Tolton, first priest of African descent in the United States who labored in the Diocese of Alton (now Springfield, Illinois) and the Archdiocese of Chicago until his untimely death in 1897 at the age of 43. .