Pope Leo XIV has appointed Texas native Bishop Daniel Garcia as the new bishop of Austin, the diocese where Bishop Garcia was ordained to the priesthood.
Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced the appointment July 2 in Washington, D.C. according to a United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) press release.
Bishop Garcia has been bishop of Monterey, California, since 2018. However, he is also already well-acquainted with the Diocese of Austin, as he served as its auxiliary bishop for more than three years after Pope Francis ordained him to the episcopate in 2015. Born in 1960, he grew up in the Waco-Cameron area of Texas, according to his biography posted by the Diocese of Monterey.
The Diocese of Austin posted to X July 2 about the news of his appointment: “We look forward to welcoming him home.”
Bishop Garcia will be entrusted with a large territory and flock in the Austin diocese, which covers 21,066 miles in Texas and has over 670,000 Catholics, according to the release.
He succeeds now-Archbishop Joe Steve Vásquez, who had served as the diocese’s bishop from 2010 until January of this year, when he was appointed archbishop of Galveston-Houston.
According to the Diocese of Monterey’s biography of Bishop Garcia, he is fluent in Spanish and English and holds a Master of Divinity from the Houston-based University of St. Thomas, where he also earned a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1988 and earned a Master of Arts in Liturgical studies from Minnesota-based St. John’s University in 2007.
He has also served in leadership roles in the Diocese of Austin’s Vocations Office, the Priests’ Personnel Board, and the Liturgical Commission. He previously served on the USCCB Committee on Communications and the Committee on Divine Worship and chaired the Subcommittee on Divine Worship in Spanish. He has served since 2021 on the Board of Directors for Catholic Relief Services.
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Author: McKenna Snow
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