 He received his episcopal consecration on the following September 8 from Cardinal Terence Cooke, with Archbishop John Joseph Maguire and Bishop Harold Robert Perry serving as co-consecrators.He was the sixth African American to serve as a Catholic bishop in the United States and the first to serve in the Archdiocese of New York.As an auxiliary bishop, he continued to serve as pastor of St. Charles Borromeo, a post which he held until 1989.