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American Roman Catholic prelate (born 1975) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Steven Joseph Lopes (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈlɔpɨʃ]) (born April 22, 1975) is an American Catholic prelate. He is the bishop and ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, a community for clergy and laypeople who celebrate according to the Anglican Use within the Catholic Church.
Steven J. Lopes | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter | |
_(cropped).jpg) Lopes in 2019 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Diocese | Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter |
| See | Houston, Texas |
| Appointed | November 24, 2015 |
| Installed | February 2, 2016 |
| Predecessor | Jeffrey N. Steenson |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | June 23, 2001 by William Levada |
| Consecration | February 2, 2016 by Gerhard Ludwig Müller |
| Personal details | |
| Born | April 22, 1975 Fremont, California, United States |
| Denomination | Roman Catholicism |
| Alma mater | University of San Francisco Saint Patrick's Seminary and University Pontifical Gregorian University |
| Motto | Magna Opera Domini ("Great are the works of the Lord") |
| Styles of Steven Joseph Lopes | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Reference style | |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Bishop |
A native of Fremont, California, Lopes was born on April 22, 1975, the only child of José de Oliveira Lopes and Barbara Jane Lopes.[1][2] His father was from Portugal and his mother from Poland.[3] He was educated at Catholic schools in California: St. Pius School in Redwood City, St. Edward's School in Newark, and Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward.[4]
Lopes studied at the St. Ignatius Institute at the University of San Francisco, and also pursued studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.[5] His philosophical studies and preparation for the priesthood took place at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California, before he was assigned to study theology in Rome. There he obtained a licentiate at the Pontifical Gregorian University while living at the Pontifical North American College.[5]
Lopes was ordained to the diaconate on October 5, 2000, during a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, Rome.[6] He was ordained a priest on June 23, 2001, for the Archdiocese of San Francisco by William Levada during a service at Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, San Francisco.[2][5][7][8] He served in two parishes in California as an associate pastor; St. Patrick's Catholic Church, San Francisco, and St. Anselm Catholic Church in Ross, California.[1]
Lopes returned to Rome to obtain a doctorate in sacred theology from the Gregorian University.[1][5][9] Since 2005, he has served as an official of the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, while also serving as a professor of theology at the Gregorian. During that time, he served as a personal aide to William Cardinal Levada, who was prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith from 2005 to 2012.[10] On July 10, 2010, he was appointed a Chaplain of His Holiness and therefore was then addressed as "Monsignor".[6] Starting in 2012, Lopes served as the secretary of the Vatican commission Anglicanae Traditiones, which was formed with the goal of developing a missal that would blend Anglican and Roman Rite liturgical elements for the use of the personal ordinariates.[2][10]
On November 24, 2015, the Holy See announced that Pope Francis had appointed Lopes as the first bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, a church structure for Catholics in the US and Canada who were mostly formerly Anglicans.[2][5][9] This announcement coincided with the first Sunday on which the ordinariates began celebrating Mass using Divine Worship: The Missal, developed while Lopes was serving on the Anglicanae Traditiones commission in Rome. As ordinary, Lopes succeeded Jeffrey N. Steenson, a former Episcopal bishop appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.[5][2][11]
On February 2, 2016, Lopes was consecrated a bishop in Houston and took canonical possession of the ordinariate.[9] His principal consecrator was Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, with Cardinal William Levada and Cardinal Donald Wuerl as co-consecrators.[8] He is the first bishop to lead any of the three ordinariates, with the other two being led by a priest as their ordinary.[5] In November 2021, he was elected chairman of the USCCB's Committee on Divine Worship.[12] In June 2024, he was a principal co-consecrator of David Waller, the first bishop-ordinary of the UK's Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.[13]
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