This is from a national perspective from Rocco Palma: On our new Auxiliary Bishop

The Drought Is Over – Pope Taps Prodigal Son as NOLA Aux.

Black Church, it's been a long wait... and now, finally, it's over.

Eight years and a month since the US' 3 million African-American Catholics – a community larger than the entire Episcopal Church – last saw one of their own raised to the episcopacy, what became an increasingly frustrating "drought" for many was broken at Roman Noon as the Pope named Franciscan Fr Fernand Cheri III (above), 62, currently campus minister at Illinois' OFM-founded Quincy University, as auxiliary bishop of New Orleans.

Coming just 16 months after Bishop Shelton Fabre was promoted to Houma-Thibodeaux, the choice of his replacement didn't just arrive relatively quickly, but at a pointedly fitting time: 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the selection of Fr Harold Perry as the Stateside church's first Black bishop of the 20th century, opening the modern era of African-American prelates. Like Fabre and the new bishop-elect, Perry – a Divine Word father who died in 1991 – was an auxiliary in the Crescent City, where Black Catholics comprise roughly a quarter of the 520,000-member archdiocese.

In December 2006, Fabre became the last African-American priest named bishop until today. In addition, this March sees the 25th anniversary of the death at 53 of Sister Thea Bowman, the Mississippi-born convert whose sparkling witness of unity and reconciliation captivated the masses, yet whose cause for beatification has long been mysteriously stalled.

A NOLA native known as "Ferd," Cheri attended the city's Notre Dame Seminary and was ordained for the archdiocese in 1978, but left his hometown clergy fourteen years later to join the "Brown Franciscans." Since entering the order, the nominee has only been assigned to New Orleans once – a 2010-11 stint as campus minister at Xavier University, where he obtained a master's from its Institute for Black Catholic Studies. The remainder of Cheri's ministry with the OFMs has likewise been in the educational apostolate. Beyond his day-to-day ministry, the bishop-elect is a board member of the National Black Catholic Congress, the Stateside church's lead organization for African-American affairs, as well as coordinator for Black Catholic ministry in the diocese of Springfield.

With the nod, Cheri joins seven other active Black bishops on the Stateside bench, five of whom lead dioceses. The highest-ranking of the group, Archbishop Wilton Gregory, marks a decade at the helm of the booming, million-member Atlanta church this week. On his appointment to the 404, the former USCCB president – the first African-American to lead the conference – became the third son of the community ever to be named a metropolitan in the US.

From his earlier life in the archdiocese to which he now returns, the appointee is ostensibly a familiar figure to Archbishop Gregory Aymond, the Big Easy's first native son to lead its 221 year-old church, who was ordained from Notre Dame three years before his new auxiliary. Despite the drought, reports from the ground indicated that an African-American pick was believed to be Aymond's strong preference.

Notably, the appointment of an assistant comes as the exceptionally well-regarded archbishop – one of the most beloved bishops among his people on these shores – prepares to take office later this year as USCCB Secretary, the responsibilities of which require a sizable amount of time and energy to be spent immersed in conference business. In any case, as African-American, Asian and Hispanic candidates for the episcopacy are traditionally drawn from national lists due to the size of the respective talent-pools, it bears reminding that it is exceedingly rare for a non-white bishop to be a native of the place where he is appointed; like the majority of Black bishops in the modern era, however, Cheri likewise comes from a religious community.

In accord with the norms of the canons, the bishop-elect must be ordained within four months. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see whether the usual Appointment Day presser brings an equally raucous reaction to the gleeful screaming that greeted Aymond's entrance into his 2009 installation, the decibel level of which memorably crashed the livefeed for some 90 seconds. (SVILUPPO: In a statement released after the news was made public in Rome, the New Orleans Chancery announced that Cheri's ordination has been scheduled for Monday, March 23rd.)

On the wider front, it's already known that Cheri's nod won't be the US' only one this week – in a very unusual release, Omaha's Catholic Voice reported Friday that Wednesday will bring the Pope's announcement of a new bishop for Nebraska's 55,000-member Grand Island diocese, where Bishop William Dendinger reached the retirement age of 75 last May. The source of the report has led to credible speculation that the choice has fallen to a priest of the Cornhusker archdiocese.

Bench-wide, four Stateside dioceses remain vacant, with – including Grand Island – another four led by (arch)bishops older than 75 and awaiting their successors.