The Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades was born in 1957 in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, and raised in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. He studied at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia and at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Ordained a priest for the Diocese of Harrisburg in 1983, he did advanced studies in theology and canon law in Rome. After serving as rector of Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, he was ordained Bishop of Harrisburg in 2004 and appointed ninth Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend in 2009.
I am very grateful for the invitation to speak to you today. I speak not as an expert in architecture, but I speak as a bishop of the Church about your service of the Church through architecture, a service for which I am deeply grateful.