Pope elevates Baltimore cleric to leadership of Rhode Island diocese

In this file photo, Bishop Bruce Lewandowski lifts the Monstrance, a sacred vessel holding the Eucharist, during a stop outside St. Alphonsus Church on Saratoga Street during the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Barbara Haddock Taylor/Staff

Pope Francis has named an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore the next bishop, or top official, of the Diocese of Providence, a 153-year-old ecclesiastical territory of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Most Rev. Bruce Lewandowski made his mark on Baltimore’s Catholic community by serving as pastor of its largest Spanish-speaking church, Sacred Heart of Jesus-Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Parish in Highlandtown, amid a boom in the city’s Latino population between 2016 and 2021. He also helped direct the archdiocese’s historic realignment plan, Seek the City to Come, from 2022 through last year.

“There is so much I love about the Church of Baltimore,” Lewandowski, 57, said in a statement Tuesday. “I will especially miss the Hispanic community. From the start, they welcomed me as one of their own. We’ve been through so much together. It will be hard to leave them.”

The Most Rev. William E. Lori, the archbishop of Baltimore, made it clear he would miss his second-in-command, a Redemptorist priest who grew up on a farm in rural Lima, Ohio.

“As Auxiliary Bishop, he preached the Gospel far and wide with zeal and effectiveness, greatly strengthened ministry to and among our growing Hispanic community and effectively conducted the Seek to City to Come parish realignment process – and much more,” Lori said in a statement.

“Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Bishop Bruce will bring his many gifts, his energy, and his pastoral heart to the People of God in the Providence Diocese.”

Lewandowski will become the tenth bishop of the New England diocese, which serves the entire state of Rhode Island. The diocese includes more than 160 churches, schools and other ministries and features a rapidly growing Hispanic population.

Providence’s leadership seat has been vacant since October 2024, when Bishop Richard Henning became the archbishop of Boston.

Before coming to Baltimore, Lewandowski served as a priest, pastor and vicar in New York, the West Indies and Pennsylvania.

Francis named Lewandowski to the position of auxiliary bishop amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, even as the priest was advocating for help for the city’s Spanish-speaking communities and partnering with the city health department and Johns Hopkins Hospital to operate free testing sites at Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Seek the City to Come, a process that drew on feedback from parishioners, clerics and parish leaders, cut the number of parishes in Baltimore and nearby communities from 61 to 23 amid losses in Mass attendance and donations, as well as high maintenance costs, mostly through closures and mergers. Most of the mergers took place in late 2024.

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