The periodic meeting of the Latin American Bishops' Conference was held in Bogota last week. Archbishop Rosendo Usuga Higuita of Colombia was elected President of the Conference. Outgoing President Henrry Danilo Bonilla of Ecuador was thanked for his hard work and steady leadership. This had been rescheduled multiple times and unfortunately only about half of the conference was able to attend. One of the functions of the c0nference is to provide lines of apostolic succession to new bishops. Alex Barahona Forero was consecrated as an auxiliary bishop on Saturday, 16 July. (Forming up the procession - the service was a hybrid bilingual liturgy since Metropolitan Archbishop Thomas Gordon does not speak Spanish.) (Censing the altar. I love how smokey this picture looks. It was not that smokey in person.) (The Litany of the Ordinands, that's the new bishop to be laid out on the rug. There was a cantor for this part of the service and he was not in any hurry.) (And there is the new bishop front and center, and me somewhat tucked behind Bishop Rodolfo Castaneda's mitre.) We'll do it again in December, but all in English, when we consecrate 2 bishops for the US: a missionary bishop and a suffragan bishop. Feast day of St. Nicholas. However, one of our South Americans and one of our Africans will be coming in to serve as the co-consecrators.