-
Bishop-designate Robert F. Christian, OP, appointed auxiliary bishop of San Francisco by Pope Francis on March 28, greeted employees at the archdiocesan Pastoral Center later that day. (Photo by Dennis Callahan/Catholic San Francisco)
April 12, 2018
Catholic San Francisco
Pope Francis has appointed Dominican Father Robert F. Christian as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Bishop-designate Christian, 69, is a native of San Francisco. He entered the Dominicans at St. Albert Priory in Oakland in 1970 and made his solemn profession as a Dominican in 1974. He was ordained a priest in Oakland June 4, 1976.
The appointment was announced in Washington March 28 by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Since 2015, he has been master of students for the Dominican’s Western province. Earlier he was a college teacher, a professor and vice dean at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum, and a lecturer at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone welcomed the new auxiliary bishop to his hometown, saying in a statement released by the archdiocese that the two had met while studying in Rome in the 1970s. “We are now all blessed that Bishop-elect Christian joins us to serve our priests, religious, deacons and all the people of the archdiocese,” he said.
Introducing Bishop-designate Christian to employees at the archdiocesan Pastoral Center, Archbishop Cordileone said he was “absolutely delighted” with the appointment.
Introducing Bishop-designate Robert F. Christian, OP, to Pastoral Center employees on March 28, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said he was “absolutely delighted” with the appointment. (Photo by Dennis Callahan/Catholic San Francisco)
Bishop-designate Christian said he was pleased to be returning home to minister among the people of San Francisco including many relatives and friends.
“I know I can count on the prayers of many people, and I am eager to serve the people of the city and archdiocese that I call home,” he said in a statement.
Bishop-designate Christian expressed that having to leave religious life to take up his new office was bittersweet, according to an article on the website of Western Dominican Province.
“I thrive in Dominican community with its rhythms of prayer, recreation, shared decision-making, and shared commitment to preaching the truth,” he said. “Being a bishop means giving up many dimensions of community life, even though it also makes possible a deeper engagement in preaching and in being an agent of mercy. This last point was made to me by the Dominican master of the order himself.”
Father Mark Padrez, OP, Prior Provincial of the Western Dominican Province, said the appointment “is a recognition of Father Robert’s deep love for Christ and the Church, and also a recognition of the order’s deep roots in the church in the Bay Area.”
Speaking to Pastoral Center employees, Bishop-designate Christian said he wants to work collaboratively with the faithful.
“We’re in this together,” he said. “I want to make collaboration the hallmark of my service,” including identifying problems.
He noted that issues in the archdiocesan territory at large include poverty, development pressure, secularism and materialism. He vowed to go to work with “sleeves rolled up.”
“I’m convinced that the church is as relevant as Christ is,” Bishop-designate Christian said.
His episcopal ordination is planned for June 5 at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
In a statement, Oakland Bishop Michael C. Barber, SJ, said he has known Bishop-designate Christian for more than 30 years. “He is a very kind and generous man, an excellent theologian, and a man with a worldwide vision of the church,” Bishop Barber said.
Bishop-designate Christian said his roots in San Francisco go back to the mid-19th century. His father, who owned an engineering company, attended West Portal School and then St. Ignatius College Preparatory. Bishop-designate Christian followed his father at SI, graduating in 1966.
After ordination in 1976, Bishop-designate Christian started his teaching career at Dominican College in San Rafael. He later joined parish ministry at Blessed Sacrament Church in Seattle and was director of the Newman Center at the University of Washington.
He received a master of divinity degree from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Oakland in 1977. Four years later, he earned a licentiate of sacred theology from the Angelicum followed by a doctorate in sacred theology from the same institution in 1984.
Bishop-designate Christian returned to teaching in 1985 as professor of sacraments and ecclesiology at the Angelicum in Rome. For two years beginning in 1997, he served as “socius,” similar to chief of staff, and vicar of the Dominicans’ Western province while lecturing in theology at the Graduate Theological Union. From 1999 to 2014, he was vice dean and professor at the Angelicum.
Other appointments include peritus, or expert, at the 1990 Synod of Bishops on priestly formation, prior of the 75-member resident community of friars at the Angelicum, member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and since 2013 as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
He wrote of his work on the commission in a 2012 article in the St. Ignatius College Preparatory quarterly magazine, Genesis.
“Ecumenical dialogue requires patience, candor, charity and a willingness to see one’s own position through the eyes of others, along with a willingness to hazard opinions provisionally in the hope of being able to express the truth in a common language,” he wrote. “Full unity is a long-term project. It is a privilege to try to nudge our communities a little closer to that goal, and it is spiritually rewarding to learn the timeless lesson that failures and dying to established ways of doing things are often God’s way of bringing about his design.”
Bishop-designate Christian “has been faithful to his call as a zealous and effective preacher of the Gospel. His role of preaching has been nourished by his study, prayer and community life,” the Dominican Western Province website article stated.
“As a faithful Dominican,” the article continued, “he has committed himself to Christ and his church – knowing that clarity in doctrine and teaching is absolutely necessary in proclaiming truth, especially in our confused age of spiritual and intellectual poverty. This truth is rooted in the love of Christ for the salvation of souls.”
Catholic News Service contributed.
Brothers Jim Christian, Tom Christian, Bishop-designate Robert Christian, OP, and John Christian joined together at the Pastoral Center to celebrate the appointment. The four, like their father, are graduates of St. Ignatius College Preparatory. (Photo Courtesy Paul Totah/SI Prep)