New Archbishop Fueled by 'New Evangelization'
Catholic Sentinel
The next Archbishop of Portland uses modern social media in the cause of proclaiming Jesus.
Archbishop-Designate Alexander Sample, current head of the Diocese of Marquette, Mich. maintains a Facebook page. And he kicked off the Year of Faith by tweeting throughout a 1,000-mile trip across Michigan's far northern Upper Peninsula.
Archbishop-Designate Sample — tall and slim at 52 — made an even longer journey this week, appearing for the announcement that he'd been named spiritual leader of the 415,000 Catholics of western Oregon.
The Mass of Installation will be held on Tuesday, April 2.
As in Michigan, bringing Christ to others is the primary mission in western Oregon. But here, there's a famously large population of unbelievers. The new archbishop has hopes and plans.
In a 2012 pastoral letter for the Year of Faith, Bishop Sample told the 70,000 Catholics in northern Michigan it's time to take up the New Evangelization with "renewed faith, fervor and zeal." The New Evangelization, begun by Pope John Paul and continued by Pope Benedict, is an effort to offer Christ to the people of the new millennium in ways that make sense in their lives but remain authentic.
"I have said, humorously but also with real seriousness, that the work of the New Evangelization will consume us in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan until our Blessed Lord returns in glory at the end of time," Bishop Sample wrote in the pastoral letter.
Paralleling the message Archbishop John G. Vlazny has given in western Oregon for 15 years, Bishop Sample said it is time for the church to "move from 'maintenance' to 'mission.'"
"We cannot set about this important mission of the new evangelization without first strengthening our own faith and coming into a deeper knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ in our own lives," Bishop Sample told his people.
Bishop Sample is a native of Kalispell, Mont. who grew up in Las Vegas and attended Catholic schools there.
The bishop says the catechesis offered to him and other youths in the wake of the Second Vatican Council was largely "insubstantial." He's been part of a movement to remedy that.
After his family moved to Michigan, he enrolled at Michigan Technological University, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in metallurgical engineering in the early 1980s. Exploring a longtime desire to become a priest, he studied philosophy the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. and then entered the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.
His father was at first cool to the idea of priesthood, but then became a major supporter. A few months after diaconate ordination, the father died of cancer.
When he was a newly ordained a priest of the Diocese of Marquette in 1990, one woman saw him in a cassock and thought he was an altar boy.
He served in parishes for four years before being sent to Rome to earn a degree in Canon Law. He returned to the Diocese of Marquette in 1996 and over the years served as a member of the Marriage Tribunal, as chancellor, as a member of the College of Consultors, as director of the Department of Ministry Personnel Services and as diocesan chaplain to the Knights of Columbus and the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People.
When he was selected for the episcopate in his home diocese by Pope Benedict in 2005, he was the youngest bishop in the U.S. at 45.
For his motto, he uses the Latin phrase, “Vultum Christi Contemplari” — “to contemplate the face of Christ.”
Still youthful, Bishop Sample serves as spiritual leader of about 70,000 Catholics in the rural, wooded Upper Peninsula. Demographics, the bad economy and what Bishop Sample calls poor formation have caused the Catholic population of the diocese to decline.
Last summer, the Diocese of Marquette was one of 43 dioceses and Catholic organizations to join a religious liberty lawsuit against the federal government because of the HHS mandate.
In 2007, at the invitation of then-Archbishop Raymond Burke, Bishop Sample attended the Red Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, delivering the homily.
Bishop Sample has urged the Congregation for Saints' Causes to move forward with the cause of his diocese's first bishop, Bishop Frederic Baraga, a 19th-century missionary who ministered to miners and native tribes.
Bishop Sample — who cites Blessed John Paul II as a major influence and inspiration — has said his two main concerns in the public square are protecting innocent life and defending traditional marriage.
Archbishop-Designate Sample is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Sub-committee on Native American Catholics, and the USCCB Sub-committee on the Catechism. He also serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in LaCrosse, Wis., and as a member of the Board of Trustees of Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.
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