A New Zealand priest Father Peter Brown has been named as the new bishop of the Catholic Church in American Samoa.
Father Brown will succeed Bishop John Quinn Weitzel from Chicago who has served as the first bishop of the local diocese since 1986.
Father Brown is currently the head of the Redemptorist Order of Priests in New Zealand and was previously chaplain of the Samoan Catholic communities in Auckland.
He was also a parish priest on Savai'i island in Samoa where he learned the Samoan language.
No date has been set for his consecration as bishop.
