{"id":455008,"date":"2025-12-18T06:39:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T06:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/455008\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T06:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T06:39:13","slug":"pope-appoints-san-diego-bishop-to-lead-monterey-diocese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/455008\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope appoints San Diego bishop to lead Monterey Diocese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Catholic-Immigration-march-34.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Catholic-Immigration-march-34.jpg\" alt=\"San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Ram\u00f3n Bejarano (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)\" class=\"wp-image-303911\"  \/><\/a>San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Ram\u00f3n Bejarano (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n<p>Pope Leo XIV has appointed San Diego Auxiliary Bishop <a href=\"https:\/\/sdcatholic.org\/auxiliary-bishop-bejarano\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ram\u00f3n Bejarano<\/a> as the next bishop of the Diocese of Monterey, the Vatican announced this week. <\/p>\n<p>Bejarano, 56, has served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of San Diego and as titular bishop of Carpi since 2020, according to the Diocese of San Diego\u2019s website. <\/p>\n<p>San Diego Bishop Michael Pham praised Bejarano\u2019s service, calling him \u201ca gentle soul and a strong advocate for peace and justice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>While the San Diego diocese will \u201close a wonderful person,\u201d Pham said, Monterey \u201cwill gain a bishop who has the heart of the Good Shepherd.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Bejarano succeeds Bishop Daniel E. Garcia, who was appointed bishop of Austin, Texas, in July. The Monterey diocese, which spans 21,916 square miles along California\u2019s Central Coast, serves about 368,150 Catholics among a total population of roughly 1.04 million. <\/p>\n<p>Born in Texas and raised partly in Mexico, Bejarano later moved to California\u2019s Central Valley, where he worked in the fields and in maintenance at a hotel to support his family before entering the seminary, according to the Diocese of San Diego\u2019s website. <\/p>\n<p>Ordained a priest in 1998 for the Diocese of Stockton, Bejarano has overseen ministries for ethnic and intercultural communities, life, peace and justice, and ecumenical and interreligious affairs in San Diego. <\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Ram\u00f3n Bejarano (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego) Pope Leo XIV has appointed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":455009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,208492,208493,49456,3417,208494,3549,208495,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,3419],"class_list":{"0":"post-455008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-diocese-of-monterey","12":"tag-diocese-of-san-diego","13":"tag-michael-pham","14":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","15":"tag-ramon-bejarano","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-auxiliary-bishop","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-vatican"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}