The Most Reverend Robert P. Deeley was named the Twelfth Bishop of Portland by His Holiness, Pope Francis, on Wednesday, December 18, 2013.

Born in Cambridge, MA, Bishop Deeley grew up in Belmont as the fourth in a family of five sons. His parents, Michael and Mary, now deceased, were born in County Galway, Ireland. The family belonged to Sacred Heart Parish in Watertown where he and his brothers attended school. The Bishop attended Matignon High School in North Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1964.

Following high school, he entered Cardinal O’Connell Minor Seminary in Jamaica Plain to discern a vocation to the priesthood. After two years of college, he received a Theodore Basselin Foundation Scholarship and continued his studies in philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., from which he graduated in 1968.

After a year of post-graduate studies, he was sent to the Pontifical North American College in Rome for his theological formation. At the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he earned a degree in Theology (S.T.B.) in 1972. After a year of continuing studies in theology, he returned to Boston and was ordained to the priesthood on July 14, 1973, at his home parish, Sacred Heart, in Watertown.

His first assignment was as associate pastor at St. Bartholomew Parish in Needham for five years. In 1978, with his appointment as secretary to the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston, he began a ministry that would last for over twenty years in that office. The last ten of those years, he served as judicial vicar (1989-1999). Throughout that period, apart from his years of graduate study in Canon Law in Rome, he lived at Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Parish in Newton and St. Brigid Parish in Lexington, where he provided priestly presence and assistance.

Bishop Deeley was named a prelate of honor (monsignor) on December 13, 1995. He was named pastor of St. Ann Parish in the Wollaston section of Quincy in 1999. He assumed the presidency of the Canon Law Society of America in 2000.

Bishop Deeley was sent to Rome in September 2004 to assist the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, being appointed as an official of the Congregation. He served at the Congregation until being named Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia for the Archdiocese of Boston, beginning his service on September 1, 2011.

Pope Benedict XVI named him Auxiliary Bishop of Boston on November 9, 2012. He was ordained to the episcopacy on January 4, 2013, at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.