El Paso Bishop Armando Ochoa Assigned To Fresno Diocese

The Catholic Diocese of El Paso announced Thursday morning that Bishop Armando X. Ochoa is being transferred to Fresno, Calif., as per orders from the Vatican.

The Vatican announced in its website that Pope Benedict XVI named 68-year-old Ochoa, who was appointed bishop of the El Paso diocese in 1996, as bishop of Fresno.

“Its really with a sad heart that I take this new responsibility, this has been my home and more than just a home, it’s been my family for the past 15 years,” the Bishop said in a news conference Thursday morning. The charismatic bishop said the border has embraced him. “It’s certainly with very, very mixed emotions that I accept this particular challenge. But always knowing that it’s not my will, but his (God’s) will be done,” Bishop Ochoa said.

The Bishop will now lead a much bigger diocese. El Paso Diocese has 55 parishes and 20 missions. Fresno’s has 89 parishes and 44 missions. There are 11 Catholic school in El Paso and 22 in Fresno. The Bishop said he found out about his reassignment two weeks ago.

The last couple of years of his tenure have been eventful. Thousands of Mexican families have moved to El Paso, fleeing the violence that plagues their home country. “How is it incumbent upon us to reach out to these folks? Well we have tremendous challenges being in the border region but I have no doubt that with so much collaberation, we’ll continue to grow as a faith community here… the church has to be a welcoming community. I can’t begin to imagine what many of our sisters and brothers here in El Paso who have grandma and grandpa living right across the border or who have their aunts and uncles or cousins and are not even able to go to a funeral,” the Bishop said.

The last couple of years have also been marked by the city’s benefits battle turned recall effort that some say has divided the El Paso Catholic community. Bishop Ochoa relocated Father Michael Rodriguez after the priest very publicly opposed City Council’s decision to extend health insurance to gay and unwed partners of city employees.

“All Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions”, Father Rodriguez told Council in June.

Bishop Ochoa said the Church could not risk losing their tax-exempt, non-profit status. “This is an ongoing investigation and I don’t get into personnel matters, but obviously the church is going to be involved in a thousand and one different things but there is no way that the church is going to enter into a situation where we’re going to put a jeopardy our 501-c3 status by mixing politics and the pulpit and so that’s enough to be said on that particular issue,” he said.

In a “Real Catholic TV” online episode shot in El Paso, parishoners from San Juan Bautista, where Father Rodriguez taught, were upset by the priest’s move. “It is not just about tolerating evil, we have to fight evil,” one woman said. The host of the program also said “this battle royale over authentic catholicism has been brewing.” Another church-goer said Father Rodriguez was “bringing forth the truth.”

When asked what his message was for Catholics, in light of the benefits issue, Bishop Ochoa said “We know what the church teaches, we have to put that in action, we have to challenge our people to understand what is our church saying, and why. Obviously, there are people who are going to put different spins on this but we have to undertand the dignity of human beings.”

The Bishop then referred to World AIDS Day, which landed on the same day of the news conference. “I cant begin to put myself in the family situation where a son or a daughter is livign with AIDS, I feel so badly for families of that nature. Whatever caused that situation is water under the bridge, but the reality is we have to continue to live and extend our faith and our well wishes,” the Bishop said.

According to the Fresno Bee, Ochoa will succeed Bishop John Steinbock, who died Dec. 5, 2010. Armando Ochoa was born April 9, 1943, in Oxnard, Calif.. He studied at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1970, the newspaper reported.

Ochoa served at three parishes in Los Angeles before becoming an administrator of Sacred Heart Parish in Lincoln Heights in 1984. He was named an auxiliary bishop for the Los Angeles archdiocese in 1987.

When asked when the Vatican would be announcing his replacement, the Bishop said “your guess is as good as mine.”

The process could take about a year.