* Archbishop James Lyke; Highest-Ranking U.S. Black Catholic

Atlanta Archbishop James Lyke, 53, the nation’s highest-ranking black Roman Catholic clergyman. Lyke became archbishop in 1991, replacing the former top-ranking black Catholic, Eugene Marino, who resigned after church officials learned of his romance with a young woman. Lyke, a native of Chicago, was the spiritual leader of 185,000 Catholics in north Georgia. He entered the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor in St. Louis in 1959, and was ordained as a priest in 1966. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Cleveland in 1970 and was ordained a bishop in 1979. He was appointed temporary administrator for the Atlanta Archdiocese after Marino’s highly publicized resignation in July, 1990. Lyke was installed as archbishop in June, 1991. The College of Consultors will convene soon to elect an administrator to guide the archdiocese until a successor can be appointed by the Vatican. In Atlanta on Sunday of kidney cancer.