VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV, historical past’s first American pope, on Thursday made his first American bishop appointment as he named Bishop Michael Pham as bishop of San Diego, California.
Pham, 58, is at the moment an auxiliary bishop within the diocese. He fills the emptiness created when Pope Francis named Cardinal Robert McElroy archbishop of Washington D.C. earlier this 12 months.
Pham, who was born in Da Nang, Vietnam, was ordained a priest within the San Diego diocese in 1999 and was made a bishop in 2023. He was answerable for programming for the dioceses’ ethnic teams and as of March had been the principle diocesan administrator. The diocese of San Diego counts about 1.3 million Catholics in a complete inhabitants of about 3.5 million individuals, in accordance with the U.S. Catholic bishops convention.
Previous to his election Could 8, the previous Cardinal Robert Prevost headed the Vatican’s bishops workplace and in that capability would have reviewed and vetted Pham’s file.
In one other appointment Thursday, Leo named a nun because the No. 2 within the Vatican’s congregation for non secular orders, a doable signal that he plans to proceed Francis’ efforts to promote extra ladies to decision-making roles within the Vatican.
Sister Tiziana Merletti, the previous head of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, is a canon lawyer and now experiences to Sister Simona Brambilla, whom Francis in January appointed because the first-ever girl to go a serious Holy See workplace.
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