Dear Friends,
With a grateful heart and with God’s grace and love, I begin my new responsibility as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of San Diego. I want to express my profound appreciation and gratitude to my predecessors who have led the People of God in this portion of the Lord’s vineyard over the years. Their leadership inspired us Catholics across the diocese to live out our call to be missionary disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ in our corner of the world today. Now, I am taking the baton to lead our diocese, along with bishops, priests, deacons, religious men and women, and laity, to continue the mission of making Jesus known in our society today through our loving words and deeds. Together, as the Body of Christ, we can make a difference and can do many great things for the greater glory of God.
In 2015, when then Bishop McElroy arrived in San Diego from San Francisco to lead our diocese, he initiated two synods — one on marriage and family life and the other on youth and young adults. There was a sense of excitement and great energy throughout the consultation process and even more so as we progressed into the implementation phase.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic slowed our progress, the Synod on Synodality called by our late Pope Francis reignited the flame of reaching out to the People of God at all stages in life and invited us to listen, to dialogue, and to propose new ideas as the Church continues its mission to evangelize the love of Jesus Christ to humanity. Cardinal McElroy was instrumental in guiding our diocese towards becoming a synodal Church. Through our various consultation processes, we have reflected upon our joys, sorrows, and hopes for the Church. This has led to a change in how decisions are made and, with the data gathered, we have identified several ideas and goals for implementation that will help us achieve our common mission, which is to evangelize all people. It brings me great joy to learn that Pope Leo XIV has expressed his intent to continue the synodal journey set forth by Pope Francis.
With that in mind, as we move forward in our mission as a diocese, I am cognizant of the great work that has been done for us and has begun to take root. In listening to the Holy Spirit and the collective voices of all who have shared their joys, concerns, and hopes for the Church, collaboration is a priority that must be modeled at every level of ministry and Church leadership.
The continuation and implementation of the proposals from the 2016, 2019, and 2021 synods will be a major focus. This process is ongoing and will continue to evolve as we move forward.
A focus will be to foster a culture that promotes vocations, both priestly and religious. The Domestic Church is the birthplace of future vocations; we must foster this sense of co-responsibility among all the faithful.
Catholic education is also a tremendous priority as we strive to provide the highest quality of Catholic education, providing an opportunity for all students to achieve academic excellence, with faith at the center.
Our diocese is diversely rich and I would like to see it come to fruition in our efforts to build an intercultural Church whose members understand one another, respect one another and work side by side with one another. This would greatly impact our efforts as a border diocese, as we face issues with immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers.
In doing this, and by the grace of God, we continue to raise awareness to respect life, to promote the dignity of every human person, including all people, and to fight against poverty and social injustice in our society.
By accomplishing these ideals, we become beacons of hope and bearers of Good News. The love of Christ means that we are all in it together. That is what love is about. How we treat one another is the reflection of our commitment to Christ’s love and justice for all people — for He came into the world to bear witness by His love, justice, and peace. This love unites us with our Savior and with one another.
Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!