DID YOU KNOW? 

— Bishop-designate Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez will be the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, which has been led by a bishop with either past or eventual ties to the Diocese of Brooklyn for 28 of its 41 years.  

— Bishop-designate Rodríguez was born in the Dominican Republic and ordained to the priesthood on July 3, 2004, in Santo Domingo. He came to the Diocese of Brooklyn in 2009 and was incardinated on June 29, 2012.  

— Bishop-designate Rodríguez became a United States citizen on July 25, 2018.  

— Before his appointment to Palm Beach, Bishop-designate Rodríguez had served as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Corona since 2020. Parishioners have said they will miss him. “He was a really good pastor,” Seguneo Chimbay told The Tablet. “I’m going to miss Father Manuel forever.”  

— Bishop-designate Rodríguez has said that his years ministering in the Diocese of Brooklyn were “among the happiest of my life.” “I will always keep in my heart everything I have learned from the many members of the diocese,” he told The Tablet.  

— A native Spanish speaker, Bishop-designate Rodríguez is also fluent in English, Italian, and French. 

— Bishop-designate Rodríguez is a canon lawyer with extensive experience in penal Canon Law. He has a doctorate, along with master’s and bachelor’s degrees, from universities in the U.S., Spain, Italy, and the Dominican Republic.  

— Working with newcomers as they navigate their lives in the U.S. has been a calling card of Bishop-designate Rodríguez’s ministry. Our Lady of Sorrows is known as the church home for Ecuadoran, Mexican, and other Hispanic groups.  

— Bishop-designate Rodríguez is a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees. “With all due respect to the Marlins, I must confess that I am a lifelong Yankees fan. That said, I am also on very friendly terms with the New York Mets, seeing as I currently reside just steps away from Citi Field,” he said in his introductory press conference in the Diocese of Palm Beach.  

— Bishop-designate Rodriguez said he “started to freak out” when he realized the call from Cardinal Christophe Pierre informing him of his bishop appointment was real. “It was a big surprise. Never in my wildest dreams [did I think] I would be leaving Brooklyn,” he told The Tablet.