LA auxiliary appointed apostolic administrator of Diocese of Monterey, Calif.

MONTEREY, Calif. (OSV News) -- The Diocese of Monterey announced Sept. 19 that Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Slawomir S. Szkredka has been appointed apostolic administrator of the diocese.

Cardinal Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the United States, informed diocesan officials of the appointment, according to a news release.

In a Facebook post, the diocese said it welcomed the appointment "with gratitude and joy." "Let us unite as one diocesan family in prayer for Bishop Szkredka as he begins this ministry among us," it said.

The diocese has been without a bishop since Bishop Daniel E. Garcia was appointed the new shepherd of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, on July 2. Bishop Garcia was installed as the sixth bishop of the Central Texas diocese Sept. 18.

In the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Bishop Szkredka has been the episcopal vicar for the Santa Barbara pastoral region. He was named to the post by Archbishop José H. Gomez on Sept. 26, 2023, when he and three other LA auxiliaries -- Bishops Albert M. Bahhuth, Matthew G. Elshoff and Brian A. Nunes -- were ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to serve the archdiocese.

The Santa Barbara Pastoral Region Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. It covers four deaneries and has 37 parishes, six high schools, three hospitals and four Spanish missions. The region is home to over 1 million Catholics.

"We are praying for our brothers and sisters in the Monterey Diocese in this time of transition," Archbishop Gomez said in a Facebook post. "I wish Bishop Szkredka all God’s blessings and graces as he assumes this assignment and we pray for Bishop Garcia as he begins his new duties as the bishop of Austin."

The archbishop said Bishop Szkredka will continue to serve as episcopal vicar for the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region "while also carrying out his new duties in Monterey."

The Diocese of Monterey covers four central coast counties -- Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and San Luis Obispo -- and serves close to 200,000 Catholics in 46 parishes and 18 schools.

It is also home to seven of California's 21 Franciscan missions, more than any other California diocese. St. Junípero Serra (1713-1784) founded the first nine of 21 missions, including the Mission of San Carlos Borromeo on the shores of Monterey Bay on June 3, 1770.

Bishop Szkredka, 51, was born in the town of Czechowice-Dziedzice in southern Poland, less than 50 miles from St. John Paul II’s hometown of Wadowice. He began his studies for the priesthood at Kraków’s Metropolitan Seminary and continued at SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake, Michigan. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2002.

Following his ordination, Szkredka served as parochial vicar at St. Genevieve Church in Panorama City and at St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park, before beginning graduate studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2008. He returned to the Los Angeles Archdiocese to serve as a professor and formator at St. John’s Seminary in 2015 and earned his doctorate in Sacred Scripture in 2017.

Before the final blessing at the auxiliaries' ordination Mass in 2023, Bishop Szkredka gave short remarks, thanking Pope Francis, Archbishop Gomez, cardinals, bishops, and the hundreds of priests, deacons, seminarians, religious, family and friends who had supported them not just during the ordination, but throughout their lives.

"Finally, we thank all the members of the people of God gathered here, and we humbly ask that you continue to pray for us," Bishop Szkredka said. "Pray that as we receive God's gifts, we may be generous in sharing God's gifts with all, especially with the poor and the needy."

"To see so many people so filled with joy, that's a gift that gives me joy," he told Angelus News, the archdiocese's online news outlet.

In mid-September 2024, he and his fellow LA auxiliaries joined other new bishops for a weeklong formation program in Rome -- sometimes referred to as the "baby bishops course" -- where they spend time with one another, Vatican officials and the pope himself.