Pope Francis has named Bishop Robert Barron to lead the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, according to the Vatican.
Since 2015, Barron has served as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he heads the popular Catholic media apostolate Word on Fire.
Bishop John Quinn, who reached the age of retirement in 2020 and submitted his resignation to the Pope, will be succeeded by him.
Barron is one of America’s most well-known bishops, with over 500,000 followers to his YouTube channel, where he educates about the faith through talks, interviews, and prayer.
Barron was elected to lead the United States bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth during the most recent gathering of the United States bishops in November.
Barron, a 62-year-old priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago, was ordained in 1986. He began teaching at the archdiocese’s Mundelein Seminary four years later, where he served as rector from 2012 to 2015.
He graduated from the Catholic University of America with a Master’s Degree in Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Sacred Theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris.
He developed the Catholicism documentary series while teaching at Mundelein, which aired on public television in 2011.
Barron was named as an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles by Pope Francis in 2015, where he resumed his work with the Word on Fire apostolate.
In recent weeks, allegations have surfaced that Word on Fire mismanaged allegations of sexual impropriety by a Word on Fire employee. During the uproar in May, several staff members, including Catholic speakers Jackie and Bobby Angel, announced their retirement from Word on Fire.
The Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester declared bankruptcy in 2018 after being accused of clerical sex abuse by more than 100 people. Quinn stated in 2018 that the diocese had been accused of sexual abuse by 17 priests.
Quinn has been the bishop of Winona since 2008, and he has continued to govern the diocese since the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops announced in 2018 that it would be renamed the Diocese of Winona-Rochester.
The diocese encompasses more than 12,000 square miles in southern Minnesota, with 107 Catholic parishes and a population of about 130,000 Catholics.