Michael Pham knows what it feels like to struggle for breath in a cloud of tear gas.
Pham was born in Vietnam in 1967 as the war reached a boiling point, and his family repeatedly tried to flee the country. One attempt when he was around 8 years old failed because the plane was too full. Another try involved squeezing onto a boat, but the group lacked food or water.
“There were some people, infants, lying on the floor of the barge, and I thought they were sleeping,” he recalled during an interview in February. “Now I realize: That was a dead body.”
Pham and his family finally made it out of Vietnam when he was a teenager, moving first to a farm in Minnesota (where a cow kicked him in the chest) and then to San Diego (“heaven on earth”), an improbable journey that reached new, improbable heights this week when one of the planet’s most prominent people gave the former refugee a historic promotion.
The Vatican on Thursday announced that Pham, 58, is to be the next bishop of San Diego’s Roman Catholic diocese and head of the region’s 1.3 million Catholics. While some lower-ranking leaders in other parts of the country also have roots in Vietnam, including auxiliary bishops in Atlanta, Georgia, and Orange, California, Pham is the nation’s first Vietnamese American to oversee an entire diocese, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“This was great news that I get to stay home,” Pham said Thursday during a press conference at the diocese’s headquarters. He has lived in the area for decades and attended the trifecta of San Diego High School, San Diego State University and the University of San Diego. “I’ve been very grateful to God.”
Pham will be formally installed as bishop July 17. That will give him power, such as the ability to appoint priests, that he has not had while serving as the diocese’s .
The news caps a tumultuous few months for San Diego County Catholics.
In January, the Vatican announced that the diocese’s longtime leader, Robert McElroy, was moving to Washington, D.C. McElroy had been San Diego’s first-ever cardinal and gained national attention because of his more progressive stances on a range of hot-button issues, including for the ordination of women.
McElroy left in March. Pope Francis died the month after. Then in May, the world got its first-ever North American pope when Cardinal Robert Prevost became Leo XIV. Popes have the final say on who becomes a bishop.
Tawn Nguyen, a parishioner at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla, said Vietnamese Americans were “ecstatic” about Pham’s new role.
“His story is our story,” she said. “He represents the resiliency and the faith of the Vietnamese Catholic community.”
‘This must be something right’
Even after arriving in San Diego, Pham’s path was anything but direct.
He originally thought his future lay in mathematics and studied aeronautical engineering. That changed when he took a philosophy course in college. The class “really turned my head to: what’s the meaning of life?” he said earlier this year.
Later, at a dinner with his dad, Pham mentioned thinking about the priesthood. “He didn’t say a word,” Pham recalled, but it was clear his father was opposed. Pham delayed making a decision, yet there was no denying that he felt most at peace while volunteering at church. “I thought, this must be something right.”
He’s still not sure why his dad wasn’t originally on board. The two were close, and Pham wonders if his father saw a commitment to the church as a departure from the family. “I think he felt it would be a loss, because to enter the priesthood, in his mind, there’s no longer a connection,” Pham said. “You belong to God.”
Pham’s dad did eventually his son’s hopes — which were almost derailed again by a bureaucratic error. After Pham applied to seminary, he didn’t hear back. No acceptance letter. No rejection. Nothing.
Pham called to ask what was going on. The person on the other end said his application didn’t exist. It turned out that someone else with the same name had also applied that year and their documents had been combined.
Pham graduated from St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and was ordained in San Diego’s diocese in 1999.
Over the years, he served as a pastor and helped start the diocese’s annual Pentecost Mass for All Peoples, a massive event in multiple languages. It was right after one of those services when Pham was informed that he would become an auxiliary bishop. A diocese spokesperson later said, half joking, that Pham had left the meeting “smiling less.”
Pham on Thursday acknowledged that the previous promotion had made him anxious. He loved pastoring and was hesitant, at least initially, about taking a more istrative role.
The job required additional training, so late last year Pham traveled to Rome to study with other auxiliary bishops. At one point, Pham and Felipe Pulido, another San Diego leader, were preparing to take a photo together in St. Peter’s Basilica when a voice asked, “Can I be in your picture?”
The speaker was Cardinal Robert Prevost, better known today as Pope Leo XIV. In their photo together, Pham’s smile is the biggest. “He has this wonderful kindness,” Pham said Thursday about the new pope. He’s “quiet, reserved — but very mindful, you know, very observant of the needs of the people.”
As San Diego’s bishop, Pham pledged to continue the church’s years-long process of “synodality,” which, among other goals, aims to elevate the voices of parishioners, particularly those from marginalized groups.
He additionally promised to resolve lawsuits from people who say they were abused by San Diego priests. (The diocese agreed to a $198 million settlement in 2007 before declaring bankruptcy again last year after more claims poured in.) “Just to hear the people sharing their stories is very painful,” Pham said. “Hopefully, we’ll come to closure soon.”
The bishop-elect will inherit longstanding tensions within the church. Some Catholics want more acceptance toward the LGBTQ+ community. Others desire a return to traditional Latin Masses. A reporter asked Pham if he was concerned about being targeted by different factions.
“I hope that people can me, or see me, as a person who stayed focused on Christ,” Pham responded.
