VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has appointed Fr Michael Charles Barber, sj, as the bishop of Oakland, California. Friday’s appointment reduces the vacant sees in the United States from 10 to nine.
Bishop-elect Barber succeeds Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, who was appointed to San Francisco in July 2012. Archbishop Alex J. Brunett, archbishop-emeritus of Seattle, has been serving as the apostolic administrator since last October.
At the moment of his appointment, Bishop-elect Barber was serving as the director of spiritual formation at Saint John’s Seminary in Brighton in the Archdiocese of Boston.
He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on July 13, 1954. He entered the Company of Jesus in 1973, after having attended Saint Pius X Preparatory School at Galt, California.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and history at Gonzaga University in 1978, completed his theological studies at Regis College at the University of Toronto in 1985, and obtained an ecclesiastical licence in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1989.
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