Austin priest named bishop of San Angelo

Bishop-designate Michael J. Sis will be installed bishop of San Angelo on Jan. 27. Catholic News Service

Pope Francis named the vicar general of the Diocese of Austin to be bishop of San Angelo.

Msgr. Michael J. Sis, 53, an Austin diocesan priest who has been vicar general since 2010, will succeed Bishop Michael D. Pfeifer, who retired at age 76 in keeping with Canon law, which requires bishops to turn in their resignation to the pope when they turn 75.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced the change in Washington Dec. 12. Bishop-designate Sis will be ordained and installed at a Jan. 27 Mass at the McNease Convention Center in San Angelo.

Bishop-designate Sis was born Jan. 9, 1960, in Mount Holly, N.J. He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, a bachelor’s degree in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and a licentiate in moral theology from Pontifical Lateran University’s Accademia Alfonsiana in Rome.

Since his ordination for the Austin Diocese in 1986 he has served in a variety of roles. He has been associate pastor and pastor at several parishes. From 1990-1992 he was an associate pastor in campus ministry at St. Mary’s Student Center in College Station, home to Texas A&M University.

From 1993 to 2006, he was pastor of St. Mary’s Student Center. In 2006, he began a three-year stint as vocation director for the diocese. In 2010, Austin Bishop Joe S. Vasquez named him vicar general and moderator of the curia.
At a news conference in San Angelo, Bishop-designate Sis called his appointment “a joy and an honor and an undeserved privilege.”

He asked for prayers from Catholics of the diocese as their new shepherd. “I want to learn your hopes, your dreams, your struggles and fears,” he said.
The new bishop made some remarks in Spanish, saying, “The church belongs to all.”

Bishop Pfeifer told him: “We welcome you. We open our hearts to you, and our hands.”

Bishop Pfeifer has been San Angelo’s bishop since he was ordained and installed to head the diocese July 26, 1985. Born in Alamo, Texas, he was ordained a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate in 1964. He served various assignments, including many years as a missionary in Mexico.

He was elected provincial of his order’s Southern province, and while in that position, Blessed John Paul II named him fifth bishop of San Angelo May 31, 1985.

The San Angelo Diocese covers more than 37,000 square miles spread across 29 counties in central and west Texas. Catholics number 77,000 out of a total population of about 860,000. The diocese has 47 parishes and 22 missions.