Washington, DC (CNS)—Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa and named as his successor Father David Konderla, a priest of the Diocese of Austin.
The appointment was announced in Washington May 13 by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Bishop Slattery is 75, the age at which canon law requires bishops to turn in their resignation. He was appointed to head the Diocese of Tulsa in November 1993 by St. John Paul II. Bishop-designate Konderla, 55, was ordained June 3, 1995.
With the announcement of his successor, Bishop Slattery said that his heart "turns to Christ with sentiments of gratitude and joy for His constant presence in my life and in the life of the Church."
"My prayer of petition to God the Father is for the good health and spiritual strength of the new bishop. I know our people have been praying that Pope Francis would send us an energetic and prayerful man to be our shepherd, and I believe God has heard our prayer," he said in a statement.
Tentative plans call for the ordination and installation of Bishop-designate Konderla as Tulsa's fourth bishop at the end of June.
The newly named bishop was at Catholic Charities Padre Pio Helping Center in Tulsa the day of his appointment.
Born June 3, 1960, in Bryan, Bishop-designate Konderla is the second of 12 children born to David and the late Ann Konderla. He grew up in Bryan, graduating from Bryan High School in 1978. He worked for several years as a machinist before entering the seminary in 1985.
He attended Holy Trinity Seminary at the University of Dallas, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History in 1989. He pursued studies at St. Mary's Seminary at St. Thomas University in Houston, where he received a Master's Degree in Divinity.
After his 1995 ordination, he was assigned as a parochial vicar first at St. Louis Church, Austin 1995-1997, then at St. Luke Church in Temple for a year, and finally at St. Mary's Catholic Center at Texas A&M University in College Station from 1997 to 2001.
In 2001, he was named vocations director for the Diocese of Austin. In 2005, he was appointed pastor and director of campus ministry at St. Mary's Catholic Center at Texas A&M.
Bishop Slattery was born Aug. 11, 1940, in Chicago and was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago on April 26, 1966. He was ordained and installed as the third bishop of Tulsa in January 1994.
The Diocese of Tulsa covers 26,417 square miles in the state of Oklahoma. It has a total population of 1,650,000 of which 64,658, or four percent, are Catholic.