Joseph Gregory Vath
Bishop Joseph Gregory Vath (March 12, 1918 – July 14, 1987) served as a Roman Catholic bishop and the first Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama.
Biography
Vath was born March 12, 1918, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 7, 1941.
Vath was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Mobile-Birmingham on March 4, 1966, and consecrated on May 26, 1966. He was appointed Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama, on September 29, 1969, when the Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham was split into the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mobile.
In the 1980's, after the Catholic priest Edward Markley caused damage to an abortion clinic, Vath issued a statement supportive of Markley. He stated that "If we are convinced that abortion is the taking of innocent life according to God’s revealed word, he is not acting unjustly according to God’s law in defending the innocent unborn one...The right to life certainly supersedes the right to property or to privacy."[1]
He died July 14, 1987.
References
- ^ "Priest who attacked abortion clinic with sledgehammer dies". AL.com. 14 January 2019.
Episcopal succession
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