It is with great joy that the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston welcomes the selection of Msgr. Steven Lopes as the first Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, by His Holiness Pope Francis. This Local Church is grateful to the Holy Father for his personal solicitude in providing a bishop for this relatively new Ordinariate. Ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 2001, Bishop-Elect Steven Lopes has served as an adjunct professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University and homiletics instructor at the North American College in Rome and up until recently, as an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he served as a secretary of the Anglicanae Traditiones (Anglican Traditions). His appointment by the Holy Father is in recognition of the growth of the Anglican Rite Usage in the U.S. and Canada, and of the work and dedication of the outgoing Ordinary, Msgr. Jeffrey Neil Steenson. As we look forward to his ordination in February 2016, I want to assure Bishop-Elect Lopes of my own prayers and fraternal support during this time of transition. I ask all the faithful of this Archdiocese to pray that through the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham, he may be a wise and faithful shepherd of our brothers and sisters of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. †

By Daniel Cardinal DiNardo