Metro Atlanta television viewers may notice a familiar face during the papal conclave in Rome.
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory will serve as a contributor and analyst for ABC News covering events leading up to the election of a new pontiff to lead the world’s estimated 1 billion Catholics. Gregory leaves Thursday for Rome.
The Archdiocese of Atlanta announced Gregory’s participation Wednesday on its Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Pat Chivers, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said the archbishop did not plan to go to Rome until he was asked by ABC. He had planned to stay here because “he knew that our local Catholic Church and the Archdiocese of Atlanta would be in the spotlight and shine at this holy moment.”
There are about 1 million Catholics in the archdiocese.
A spokesman for ABC could not confirm the information.
Gregory has made multiple trips to Rome over the years and knows some of the cardinals who will elect the next pope.
Then Pope Benedict XVI resigned last Thursday because of his health and his concerns that he lacked the stamina to fulfill his responsibilities to the Roman Catholic Church.
In a letter published in the Feb. 3 issue of The Georgia Bulletin, Gregory said he had witnessed six papal vacancies in his lifetime.
The first time, he writes, was in1958 when as a sixth-grader in Chicago, he watched as Pope John XXIII was named the pontiff.
Gregory, 65, was appointed Atlanta’s sixth archbishop in 2004 and is the former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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