Bishop Cozzens named bishop of Crookston

Pope Francis has named Bishop Andrew Cozzens the bishop of Crookston, the papal nuncio to the U.S. announced Oct. 18. The bishop-designate has served as an auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis since 2013.

Bishop Cozzens, 53, was ordained a priest of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1997 and served as a parochial vicar at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul (1997-2000) and the then-Faribault Catholic Community (now Divine Mercy in Faribault) (2000-2002) before pursuing a doctorate in sacred theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, finishing in 2008. From 2006 to his episcopal ordination, he was a professor of sacramental theology and formator at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul. He was ordained a bishop Dec. 9, 2013, on the transferred Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

“I am grateful to Our Holy Father for entrusting to me this important mission and my heart is already filled with love for the faithful, the priests, and the religious of the Diocese of Crookston,” he said in a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Oct. 18. “I have great excitement for this opportunity to serve.”

His installation as the eighth bishop of Crookston will take place 1 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston. Prior to the installation, he plans to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at noon Nov. 28 at the Cathedral of St. Paul followed by a 1-4 p.m. open house reception.

A native of Denver, Bishop Cozzens was born Aug. 3, 1968. He is the son of Jack and Judy Cozzens and the youngest of three children. He attended Catholic grade school, high school and college. He is a graduate of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, where he grew in faith through the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Prior to entering seminary, Bishop Cozzens served from 1991 to 1992 as a team leader of NET (National Evangelization Teams) Ministries, a traveling missionary outreach to youth. His first NET Ministries assignment was to the Crookston diocese. The following academic year, he served as a co-director of campus outreach of St. Paul’s Outreach, a college campus ministry. Both NET and SPO are headquartered in the Twin Cities.

As he discerned priesthood, Bishop Cozzens and a small group of other men formed the Companions of Christ, a fraternal community of priests and seminarians that has since established communities in the Archdiocese of Denver and Diocese of Joliet, Illinois. The organization received canonical recognition in 2012.

As an auxiliary bishop, Bishop Cozzens has assisted Archbishop Bernard Hebda in leading the archdiocese and has been at the helm of several initiatives, including as chairman of the executive team for the 2022 Archdiocesan Synod, a process that began in 2019. He has served as vicar for Catholic Education and overseen the archdiocesan offices of Latino Ministry, Evangelization, and Marriage, Family and Life.

He served as interim rector of The St. Paul Seminary from June 2018 until January 2019 and has long been a leader in national efforts to strengthen seminary formation. In 2015 he began working to form the Seminary Formation Council, which now sponsors a two-year certificate in formation. He serves as the president of its board of directors. Bishop Cozzens is also the president of the corporate board for the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, Nebraska.

He is chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, and in that position is leading a three-year National Eucharistic Revival that will begin in June. He also serves as chairman of the board of NET Ministries and St. Paul’s Outreach.

In his statement, Bishop Cozzens said that while he is excited for the appointment, “At the same time I also grieve the fact that I will be leaving my home.”

“After almost 25 years of serving in the Archdiocese, I have immense love and gratitude for the innumerable ways the people, priests, religious and bishops have blessed and formed my life,” he said. “The life of the Church in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is vibrant, and in many ways, unparalleled in our country. I have experienced personally that God is doing incredible things here through so many good people who love Christ and his Church, and I expect that to grow as the Archdiocese brings the Synod to completion and begins a new phase of Evangelization.”

Bishop Cozzens’ episcopacy has coincided with exposure of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. As an auxiliary bishop, he helped lead the archdiocese through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy from 2015 to 2018 that involved more than 450 abuse claims and resulted in a $210 million settlement with victim-survivors. He was also involved in working to resolve criminal and civil charges filed against the archdiocese in 2015 related to its handling of clergy sexual abuse. That case and its settlement brought about serious, positive reform in the archdiocese’s culture and safe environment efforts, Bishop Cozzens has said.

A month after he was ordained bishop, he also became involved in an internal investigation of sexual misconduct against Archbishop John Nienstedt, who had been leading the archdiocese since 2008. Bishop Cozzens later called that investigation “doomed to fail” because it was conducted internally and without its leaders having authority to act. He joined other U.S. prelates calling for a national, independent structure to investigate bishops accused of wrongdoing. A structure was ultimately established worldwide through Pope Francis’ 2019 legislative document “Vos estis lux mundi.”

As the eighth bishop of Crookston, Cozzens succeeds Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who led the diocese from 2007 until his resignation in April at the request of Pope Francis. The resignation followed a Vatican investigation into allegations that he mishandled allegations of clergy sexual abuse. The investigation was the first of a standing U.S. bishop under the protocols outlined in “Vos estis.” It was overseen by Archbishop Hebda, as the relevant metropolitan archbishop, and carried out by a team of lay experts in safe environment and civil and canon law.

Bishop Richard Pates, bishop emeritus of Des Moines, Iowa, and a former auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, has served as apostolic administrator of Crookston since Bishop Hoeppner’s resignation.

“The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is honored that the Holy Father has chosen our Auxiliary, Bishop Andrew Cozzens, to lead the Diocese of Crookston,” Archbishop Hebda said in the archdiocese’s statement. “I am not surprised that Pope Francis would have seen in him the extraordinary priestly gifts that have long been recognized by the priests and faithful of this Archdiocese who have come to know him and love him as an energetic and capable shepherd with a huge heart, sharp intellect, and unfailing love for Christ and his Church.

“I consider it a great privilege to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Bishop Cozzens so closely in the last six years and will always be grateful that he was here to introduce me to the Archdiocese that he had come to know and love, first as a young NET missionary from Colorado, then as a seminarian, priest and bishop,” he continued. “His steadfast advocacy for those who had been hurt in any way by the Church, his passion for Catholic education and evangelization, his creative guidance of our Synod process, and his love for immigrants, refugees and those on the peripheries have all left what I hope will be an indelible mark on me and on this Archdiocese. While I will miss his daily counsel and example, I very much look forward to continuing to work with him as a brother bishop in our Province.”

Located in northwest Minnesota, the Diocese of Crookston was established in 1909. It comprises 17,210 square miles and 14 counties. According to its website, it has about 35,000 Catholics in 66 parishes served by 41 diocesan and three religious order priests. The diocese has eight Catholic grade schools, one Catholic high school, three Catholic hospitals and two Catholic nursing facilities. It is considered “entirely rural in nature,” the diocese’s website states, with farming, logging and tourism as its main industries.

“I am extremely grateful to have served with Archbishop Hebda and the many priests of this Archdiocese, who have been true brothers in Christ to me,” Bishop Cozzens said in the statement. “I will always treasure in my heart the gift of so many deep friendships with priests, religious and laity of the Archdiocese. As I go forth following the call of Jesus, I beg your prayers for me and the Diocese of Crookston.”

Bishop Cozzens will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. Oct. 18 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston. It will be livestreamed at facebook.com/DioCrookston.