Bishop in Peru, who had been ordained for Alabama diocese, dies at 83

An Irish-born priest ordained in the U.S. who became a bishop in the Peruvian Andes died Monday at the age of 83.

Bishop William Molloy McDermott, who was ordained to the priesthood in 1955 and worked for several years in the diocese of Birmingham, Ala., moved to Peru in the early 1960s, serving at a rural parish in Huancarama.

In 1976, Pope Paul VI named him an auxiliary bishop of Huancavelica, in the Peruvian Andes. He became bishop of the diocese in 1982 and served there for 23 years until he suffered a stroke and retired in 2005.

He died in a Catholic nursing home in Lima.

According to the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, his funeral was to be celebrated Wednesday in the Huancavelica cathedral, and he was to be buried in the cathedral crypt.