Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday appointed Mexican-born prelate, Jose Horacio Gomez, to head the Archdiocese of Los Angeles whose 4.6 million Catholics make it the largest in the US in terms of the number of faithful.
The 59-year-old succeeds as archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony, who having turned 75 - the retirement age for Catholic bishops - in February, tendered his resignation to the pontiff, the Vatican said.
Born in Monterrey, Mexico, and ordained as a priest in 1978, Gomez has a degree in accounting and is a former archbishop of San Antonio, in the US state of Texas. In 2005 he was named one of Time Magazine's 25 most influential Hispanics in the United States.
In 2007 the archdiocese of Los Angeles reached one of the largest settlements in the US relating to sexual abuse by priests, when it reportedly agreed to pay more than 500 alleged victims a total of 660 million dollars.