WHEELING – The Vatican announced this morning its choice for the new bishop to oversee the embattled Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

The Most Rev. Mark Brennan, 72, an auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Baltimore, was named to the position today by Pope Francis.

The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston held a 9 a.m. press conference at its chancery offices in Wheeling to introduce the new bishop hours after the Vatican made its official announcement on the position at 6 a.m. local time.

The vacancy was created in September when former Bishop Michael Bransfield retired after serving 13 years in the diocese. Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore has served in an interim role overseeing the diocese, but the following 10 months after Bransfield’s departure have been a tumultuous time for West Virginia’s Catholics.

A church investigation into Bransfield found “excessive” spending and credible reports of sexual harassment during his tenure. Last week, the Vatican reprimanded Bransfield, ordering that he could not preside over or participate in any public celebration of Liturgy, barring him from living in West Virginia and requiring him to make personal amends “for some of the harm he caused,” the nature and extent of which are to be decided by the future bishop of Wheeling-Charleston.

The Revs. Frederick Annie, Kevin Quirk and Anthony Cincinnati, all three of whom were mentioned in the diocese’s preliminary investigative report of Bransfield’s conduct, also resigned from their administrative posts in the diocese and were assigned new duties elsewhere in West Virginia.

Brennan, a Boston native who was ordained in Washington D.C., in 1976, spent time studying Spanish in the Dominican Republic and completed his theology studies at the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was named auxiliary bishop of Baltimore in 2016 and has ministered to the city’s Hispanic community.