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Published: December 1, 2008
Highest-ranking Hispanic bishop in western U.S.
Jaime Soto officially takes over as leader of Sacramento diocese
It’s official: the apostolic nuncio to the United States announced on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation of Sacramento Bishop William K. Weigand, who had headed the diocese for nearly 15 years. The bishop, in failing health for many years, was allowed to retire at 71 – four years before the standard ecclesiastical retirement age of 75.
 Yesterday at 2:30 p.m., the First Sunday of Advent and the day on which the resignation took official effect, a Mass was celebrated at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento, after which Bishop Weigand transferred his crozier – the curved staff representing the office of bishop – to Coadjutor Bishop Jaime Soto, who then became the new Bishop of Sacramento. Bishop Weigand also ceded the cathedral to Bishop Soto, making Soto the ninth bishop of the diocese.
During the entire time he has served as a bishop, Weigand “has endured ill health, having been diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis,” says the diocesan web site’s episcopal biography. “In April 2005, he underwent a living donor liver transplant, returning to work full time by November of 2005.”
“I'm just kind of worn out," Bishop Weigand told the Sacramento Bee. "I haven't run out of ideas. I just don't have the energy."
Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Weigand to his current post in 1994, following 13 years as Bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah. He arrived in Sacramento in January 1994. In 2004, Bishop Weigand publicly upbraided then-Gov. Gray Davis, telling the governor to "have the integrity" to stop receiving Communion because of his pro-abortion politics. A year later, the bishop ordered the firing of Marie Bain, a drama teacher at Loretto High School, an all-girls Catholic prep school. Bishop Weigand took the action after a parent sent him a photograph of Bain escorting women at a Planned Parenthood clinic. In a letter to Loretto High School officials, the bishop wrote: “I am directing you, under the provisions of Code of Canon Law… to dismiss Ms. Bain with all deliberate speed." In June 2005, the diocese agreed to pay $35 million to settle 33 claims of sexual abuse by priests. The bishop told the Bee that the diocese is beginning to recover from the expense, but the “hurt and pain” remain.
 Bishop Soto, 51, was named coadjutor bishop in October 2007. He is now the highest-ranking Hispanic bishop in the western United States. Prior to being named Coadjutor Bishop of Sacramento, Soto served as Auxiliary Bishop of Orange County.
Bishop Soto most recently made news when he spoke to the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, meeting in Long Beach on Sept. 18. The group, based in Berkeley, is a network of local ministries that has the reputation of taking, at best, an ambiguous stance on the moral character of homosexuality and homosexual acts. Bishop Soto’s remarks apparently shocked some in the audience, several of whom walked out during his talk, when he told them that sexual relations between people of the same sex are sinful. “Married love is a beautiful, heroic expression of faithful, life-giving, life-creating love,” said Bishop Soto. “It should not be accommodated and manipulated for those who would believe that they can and have a right to mimic its unique expression." When the bishop finished speaking, most of his audience sat in stunned silence, with only a smattering of applause.
Bishop Soto also has a record of praying outside abortion clinics with pro-lifers, both in Orange County and in Sacramento. But some conservative critics have expressed doubts about the new Bishop of Sacramento because he has also freely associated with pro-abortion legislators. For example, in January, just a few weeks after he joined pro-lifers in prayer outside Planned Parenthood of Sacramento, Bishop Soto attended a glad-handing reception at the state capitol staged by the California Latino Legislative Caucus, one of the most pro-abortion groups in the legislature.
After the formal part of the meeting, Bishop Soto posed for photos with various politicians, among them pro-abortion legislators Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana; Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose; Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, D-San Diego; and Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento.
Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 12:28 AM By Charles O'Connell
There are those who are accustomed to frothing off at the mouth about various Bishops' perceived faults. These same people would melt in 5 minutes like Elphaba, the mean lady in the Wizard of Oz, if they had to bear on their shoulders the Bishops' burdens. These chronic detractors ought to observe the Cure of Ars' advice in his 'Counsel on Unnecessary Letters to the Press': "Instead of raising your voice in the newspapers, raise it before the door of the Tabernacle."
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 1:29 AM By Dan
" But some conservative critics have expressed doubts about the new Bishop of Sacramento because he has also freely associated with pro-abortion legislators. " I will give Soto the benefit of the doubt for now, because as a highly successful Latino it is natural for him to attend the caucus. What message he sends as bishop of Sacramento will be significant. He has a track record of courageous upholding of Catholic teaching. Excellency, you are in my prayers to keep going!
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 4:29 AM By Fr. M.P.
Pray for the new bishop.
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 10:20 AM By Life Lady
Maybe the new bishop was thinking of Our Lord when he would hang out with publicans, and even invited a tax collector to follow him as an apostle. In the instance of Our Lord calling "undesireables" to Himself, they all repented of their former ways. Maybe Bishop Soto needs to recall that part of the association with "undesireables" and ask that they do the same.
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 11:55 AM By Eileen
"But 'some conservative' critics have expressed doubts about the new Bishop of Sacramento because he has also freely associated with pro-abortion legislators?" What is that telling comment all about? Who are the some? Why not just write that Catholic critics have expressed doubts? When it's the majority it must be coddled or ignored? When it's the minority it''s "some conservatives?" Hmmm! I think we need some more of Father Joseph Illo's Modesto Catholic courage around here!
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 3:59 PM By MILLTHORN
I agree with Life Lady. And since we have no way of knowing the entire substance of their verbal exchanges, one might be comforted with the thought that at some point during the meeting, there WAS made (by Bishop Soto) a strong suggestion to repent "of their former ways".
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 4:36 PM By OneoftheSheep
Dear Lady of Guadalupe, co-patron of the Sacramento Diocese, bless our dearly beloved departing Bishop Weigand. Well done, good and faithful servant of God!
And dear Lady, our Mother, guide the hand, the heart, the soul of our new Bishop Soto. Bless him. May his ministry be long and fruitful in the River City Diocese.
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 4:57 PM By Elizabeth
Everyone-
Please pray for Bishop Soto and all the Bishops......
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 8:14 PM By Matthew
Here in the Diocese of Monterey CA we were fortunate enough to receive another Latino who also happened to be one of Bp. Weigand's former underlings, Bp. Richard Garcia. Bp. Garcia is a HUGE improvement over Bp. Slyvester Ryan. I wish Bp. Soto well in his new post.
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Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 8:17 PM By Maxwell
If he does well in the next few years Soto will be a front-runner along with Richard Garcia for Roger Mahony's position in 2011/2012...
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Posted Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:14 PM By JPeterman
"Highest-ranking Hispanic bishop in western U.S." So who care's if he's hispanic? I mean of course he's a proud, bright light for the Hispanic community and for that they should be proud but please CC, don't go down the road of the secular media in having to promote the politically correct garbage agenda. Holy Mother Church is universal, his color or ethnic background matter not, that's he's a true Apostle of God is the only thing.
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Posted Wednesday, December 03, 2008 6:23 AM By JLS
It is always great to find where a man rises to Church leadership and is saintly to all and not partisan to some. We do have warring ethnicities in this nation, which is ruled by those who have moved on from Christianity, from Catholicism and into the realm of such stuff as the brightly illuminative Deism and its ilk of nature and artifice worshipers. The late John Paul II taught that it is important for man to retain his cultural identity and to celebrate it; but this is not the same as each ethnicity deifying itself.
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Posted Wednesday, December 03, 2008 10:03 AM By Almond Milk
I like what you said JPeterman "Holy Mother Church is universal, his color or ethnic background matter not, that's he's a true Apostle of God is the only thing. " I too believe that, race does not matter what matters most is that he saves souls and brings them to Jesus and mother Church! I am hispanic and I could care less, all I care about is to see his love and true reverence for truth and saving souls, doing the Will of my Lord Jesus!
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Posted Wednesday, December 03, 2008 9:02 PM By JLS
The Hispanic community has had bishops for centuries ... something on the order of 20 centuries. And often the Catholicism is stronger in such lands than in this land. Spanish bishops were persecuted for 800 years by the Muslims; the U.S. has not even existed for half that time, and there have never been any martyred U.S. bishops. The Spanish episcopacy has endured and grown for twothousand years; having started from the beginning of Christendom. By contrast, the Catholic Church in England started 1600 years ago and failed 400 years ago. Spanish bishops began Catholic communities in innumerable regions of the world, most of which are continuing to bloom. The Hispanic Church has endured countless martyrdoms, whereas the Church in the U.S. has not even been able to handle the mildest of persecutions for a mere few centuries. So, why is it that so many people are going to place the new Hispanic Bishop in the test box? Doesn't this seem ridiculous?
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Posted Thursday, December 04, 2008 5:09 PM By JPeterman
Great points JLS though when the media or goovernment says "hispanic", they don't mean Spanish so I guess only the "hispanic" Bishops would count in your total only for the last couple of hundred years or so. Ah well, it's all politically correct, social engineering garbage, meant to divide people. The one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church grows stronger by the minute from Bombay to LA to Madrid and every point in between. This global economic crisis will only help The Church grow.
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Posted Saturday, December 06, 2008 8:07 AM By JLS
JPeterman, I'm aware in a growing way of my bias regarding cultures not my own. Anything not anglo-saxon is not fully understood by me, and thus suspicious. But this is not just me, it applies to virtually everyone to some degree I imagine. It is one more thing we all have to constantly rise above, as you point out. Since becoming Catholic I have enjoyed more and more the virtues I discover in solid Catholic cultures, and I disparage more and more some of the errant things in the pagan nature of the cultural tradtions I was raised in. I know from study and experience that this issue is one of the most difficult for anyone to deal with.
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Posted Sunday, December 07, 2008 9:03 AM By JLS
What I was trying to say, JPeterman, was only that every person tends towards what is called "ethno-centrism". I support fully your position on this that the Church rises above this sort of human behavior. Jesus was Jewish, yet within a half century of His Crucifixion, the gentile world consisting of myriads of ethnicities had taken up their Crosses and followed Jesus. They did not become Jews, but Catholics. These ethnicities ranged from Spain, North Africa, Ethiopia, the Middle East, India, Europe and included the three major races ... after all, the Silk Road connected Rome with Korea and the merchants traveling it carried the news, although perhaps there is no historical document that shows any Christian start up churches east or north of India in those early years of Catholicism.
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Posted Sunday, December 07, 2008 2:01 PM By Mark from PA
I find your 8:07 post interesting, JLS. As someone from a multi-ethnic background I have a different perspective. I am proud of the diversity of my parish, we have a beautiful variety of people. Our parish has weekly Masses in Polish and Spanish and also has many black and Asian parishoners. I feel blessed to have been exposed to a wide variety of people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. When I hear people speak about having a smaller Church, I cringe. I think our Church is a big tent with room for all. Our parish has a rainbow of people and for this I am thankful.
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Posted Saturday, December 13, 2008 2:49 PM By Mark from PA
I just wanted to share my blessing to the Latino community on the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our Church had a beautiful Mass yesterday to celebrate this feast. After the Mass we had a nice fiesta in the church basement. It was such a treat, the Mass followed by tasty Mexican food. I just wanted to share. God's blesssings to all.
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Posted Friday, December 19, 2008 8:09 PM By Mark from PA
Tan cerca de mi. Tan cerca de mi. Que hasta lo puedo tocar. Jesus esta aqui.
La paz con vosotros.
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