Pope appoints 53 year old Garcia-Siller Archbishop of San Antonio

Pope Benedict XVI has appointed 53 year-old bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller archbishop of San Antonio, USA. Formerly auxiliary bishop of Chicago, he takes over the post of pastor to the estimated 700 thousand Catholics in the Archdiocese from Archbishop José Horacio Gómez, who was recently appointed as the Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles.

The oldest of 15 children, Bishop Garcia-Siller was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. He entered the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in Mexico City in 1973, and was sent to the United States in 1980 to minister to migrant workers in California. He also studied at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, from where he obtained Master's degree in Divinity and a Master's in Theology.

Garcia-Siller was ordained to the priesthood on June 22, 1984, and then served as an associate pastor at St. Joseph Church in Selma until 1988. He furthered his studies at the Western Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESO) in Guadalajara, earning a M.A. in Psychology; and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

From 1990 to 1999, he served as rector of the Holy Spirit Missionaries' houses of studies in Lynwood and Long Beach and in Portland, Oregon. He was rector of his order's theologate in Oxnard from 1999 to 2002, also serving in three parishes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He was then named superior of the Holy Spirit Missionaries' vicariate for the United States and Canada in 2002.

On January 24, 2003, Garcia-Siller was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago and Titular Bishop of Oescus by Pope John Paul II.