Bishop Joe Vasquez will be the next Archbishop of Houston

On January 20, 2025By Littum

Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, will be announced as the next archbishop of Galveston-Houston this week, sources close to the process have confirmed. The pillar.

Sources close to the Dicastery for Bishops told The pillar that Vasquez will be presented in the archdiocese on Monday, January 20. In becoming the third archbishop and sixth head of the common see of Galveston Houston, he will assume leadership of an archdiocese of 1.8 million Catholics and the fourth largest city in the country.

In addition to leading the Austin diocese, where he arrived in 2010, Vasquez was appointed by Pope Francis in 2023 to serve as apostolic administrator of the Texas Diocese of Tyler after the pope took the unusual step of removing Bishop Joseph Strickland from his leadership of the . pin.

While Strickland was removed in part for his controversial comments about Pope Francis, The pillar also reported at the time that questions were being raised about the governance of a diocesan high school, significant staff turnover in the diocesan curia, and issues with the controversial Veritatis Splendor community, which Vasquez had to contend with in addition to his responsibilities in Austin.

Vasquez served as head of both dioceses until Pope Francis appointed Bishop Gregory Kelly to the Diocese of Tyler last December.

At age 67, Vasquez will succeed Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, 75, who submitted his resignation letter last May.

In addition to leading the archdiocese, the cardinal served as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2016 to 2019, and in 2014 was appointed by Pope Francis to serve as a member of the Vatican’s Economic Council.

Vasquez, a Texas native, studied theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston before going on to seminary studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1984 for the Diocese of San Angelo.

After several assignments in parish ministry, Vasquez was named Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in 2002, serving variously as episcopal vicar for Hispanics, vicar general and chancellor. He was appointed Bishop of Austin in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.

The appointment of Vasquez to Galveston-Houstion is the latest in a long line of archbishopric appointments to be made to the Church in the United States.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis named Cardinal Robert McElroy, former bishop of San Diego, to succeed Cardinal Wilton Gregory as archbishop of Washington. Last August, then-Bishop Richard Henning was appointed to replace Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston.

Currently, the archbishops of Detroit, Cincinnati, Mobile, Omaha, Kansas City, Kansas, New Orleans, and Chicago are all past the nominal retirement age of 75 set by canon law.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York turns 75 in February and will be joined by the archbishops of Denver, Santa Fe, Las Vegas and Miami later this year.