Bishop Cozzens on Crookston appointment: God’s ‘been preparing me for this’

Bishop Andrew Cozzens was giving classes to religious sisters in New Ulm, Minnesota, on the morning of Oct. 4 when a call came in from Washington, D.C. The caller left no message, so Bishop Cozzens considered it a “random call” and continued to teach. But, that same number called three more times before noon. So, at his lunch break, he decided to call back.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the U.S. apostolic nuncio, answered the phone. “I’m very happy to speak to you,” Bishop Cozzens recalls him saying. Archbishop Pierre told Bishop Cozzens that Pope Francis had named him bishop of Crookston, a diocese of 14 counties in northwest Minnesota.

“My immediate reaction was, ‘Praise God! Whatever God wants,’” Bishop Cozzens told The Catholic Spirit.

Archbishop Pierre announced the assignment Oct. 18. An installation Mass is planned for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston Dec. 6.

Bishop Cozzens, 53, has served as an auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis since 2013. A native of Denver, he was ordained a priest of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1997 and ministered in two parishes before pursuing a doctorate in sacred theology in Rome. He then taught at The St. Paul Seminary until he was ordained a bishop.

Bishop Cozzens moved to the Twin Cities after graduating from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, to serve as a traveling missionary to teenagers through NET Ministries. His first NET assignment was to the Crookston diocese, from Barnesville in the south to Warroad in the north, near the Canadian border. He now sees that time as providential.

“If you would have told me in 1991, when I’m … right out of college, that someday you’ll be the bishop here, I’d be like ‘you are crazy.’ But that’s God’s plan,” he said. “I love the idea that I’m headed further down the pilgrimage of life with the Lord, and always was struck by the line from St. John Paul II when he said, ‘Jesus is my life’s companion.’ And so that’s the real sense I have as I go to Crookston — like, the Lord is going with me, and he’s been preparing me for this. There’s a lot I don’t know about what my life’s going to look like, but I know the Lord is my life’s companion, and he’ll be with me. In that way I see my life as a great adventure with the Lord, and I’m excited about it.”

He realizes he’s transitioning from ministry in the archdiocese during a critical time, as he’s been leading committee efforts since 2019 to prepare for an Archdiocesan Synod Assembly in June 2022 that will lay the groundwork for a pastoral letter and plan on the archdiocese’s future. Meanwhile, as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, he’s leading a National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year initiative that’s slated to begin in June.

However, “I did think about the need of the Diocese of Crookston, and I know they need some healing and they need a good presence. And I’m happy to go there with my energy and enthusiasm and desire to bring healing there,” he said. “I trust Divine Providence in regard to the timing.”

Bishop Cozzens was ordained Dec. 9, 2013. He was 45 years old, and the second youngest U.S. bishop at the time, by one year. As he reflects on the eight years since, “it’s been a real adventure,” he said.

“Everyone knows that the announcement of my becoming auxiliary bishop happened as the (sexual abuse) crisis of 2013 broke in the archdiocese, right at the very same time — literally days after I got a call from the papal nuncio (announcing the episcopal appointment),” he said. “My life very early on as a bishop was marked by helping the archdiocese through an extremely difficult time, probably the most difficult time in the history of the archdiocese.”

His experience includes the archdiocese declaring bankruptcy in January 2015 due to clergy abuse claims. That resulted in a $210 million settlement for victim-survivors in 2018. In June 2015, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office filed civil and criminal charges against the archdiocese for how it handled a sexual abuse case, and its archbishop and an auxiliary bishop resigned their roles 10 days later.

“We were Ground Zero for a while of the sexual abuse crisis in the country. We have done a good job in building from that spot,” he said. “I just happened to be in the right or the wrong place at the right time, depending on how you look at it. I learned a lot having to go through that. I do think the archdiocese is in one of the best places in the country. And I think the people we have involved are some of the most qualified in the country.”

Bishop Cozzens said that his first priority after his installation will be getting to know people and the diocese’s history. That includes the resignation earlier this year of his predecessor, Bishop Michael Hoeppner, following a Vatican-initiated investigation into how he handled clergy sexual abuse allegations.

“I need to meet the priests. I need to meet the lay leaders. I need to meet the staff of the Diocese of Crookston, and I really want to hear what their experience has been like and what they’ve been through,” Bishop Cozzens said. “And I want to know how they’re doing and where they’re at so that we can begin together to build a direction forward.”

He expects to spend a lot of time in parishes, in part because confirmation — a sacrament uniquely conferred by a bishop — is held in parishes, not at the diocese’s cathedral, as is the custom in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“I fully expect to put on a lot of miles on the car because I want to be out in the parishes getting to know the people,” he said.

Bishop Cozzens also expects diocesan preparations for the 2023 Vatican Synod on Synodality to provide opportunities for widespread listening to a range of people on their experiences and hopes for the future.

He also sees the National Eucharistic Revival he’s preparing to lead as “a very exciting thing to bring to the Diocese of Crookston.”

“We’re all just coming out of the COVID crisis still, and we know that there is a crisis of faith in the Eucharist in the United States, and so we want to revive that faith,” he said. “I’ll be looking for ways that we can do that together in the Diocese of Crookston, to bring people back to the Church and to revive the faith of the Eucharist in the diocese. That will certainly be a central focus of my work in the first few years as we participate together as a nation in this National Eucharistic Revival.”

Bishop Cozzens is also a national leader in seminary formation — and recently published a book on the priesthood — but there’s no seminary in the Crookston diocese. He looks forward to getting to know the diocese’s six seminarians, encouraging other men to discern the call, and exploring how his experience in seminary formation might translate into bolstering lay formation as well.

“To me, it’s one of the most beautiful things when God calls someone to follow him as a priest or a religious, and I want to be a part of promoting that and helping young people to hear that call,” he said.

“I often point out to people there’s no other profession in the country where a person gets as much individual attention in their formation … than a current man studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood,” he added. “I want to bring that formation to the lay people that I work with and to other people in the diocese … so that we can be formed to be the kind of disciples that Jesus wants us to be.”

He’s excited to know that the Diocese of Crookston hosts summer camps for young people, in part because that connects with his interest in encouraging youth, fostering vocations and his love of the outdoors. As a young priest, Bishop Cozzens gained a reputation for embracing adventure: rock climbing, mountain biking, cliff jumping and skiing — and he still does some of those activities today. (He’s given up rock climbing “due to my age,” he said.) He welcomes the opportunity to be in the outdoors in northwestern Minnesota, which is largely rural. Crookston itself has a population of around 7,900. Its largest city is Moorhead, with 44,500 people.

“I love the Northwoods of Minnesota, and I love Minnesota,” he said, “so I’m very excited to live in the northern part of the state.”

As he reflects on his priesthood and time as bishop, he said he has been prepared for this role by “a ton of experience that the Lord has given me, whether that’s the work I’ve done with our Catholic schools, the work I’ve done with priests and priests’ assignments. … Thank God, I do feel like I go with a few tools on the belt — that I’m ready. But I also do feel like the Lord’s been preparing my heart just to give myself in a new way. I love the image of life as a pilgrimage or a journey. Already so much in my life, I would say I never would have guessed that this is where the Lord would lead me.”

Despite his excitement for this next role, it will be hard for him to leave behind the friends and coworkers he’s had in the archdiocese, he said. He wants people to know that they’ll continue to be in his prayers.

“Some of the greatest treasures that life gives us are the friendships that we make in Christ,” he said. “To leave some of those will be a sad thing. There will be grief there.”

His installation will take place in the final days of the Year of St. Joseph, which ends Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. It was important to him to hold the installation Mass within the special year, he said, because Joseph has been “providential” in his own life.

“Both Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II have spoken about (St. Joseph) as a model for the bishop,” he said. “He’s the protector of the Church and the protector of the Holy Family. And so, in that sense, he’s a great intercessor for me as a bishop. I think his humility, the way he listens to the Lord and the way he loves the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus, and the way he desires to give his life to care for them and protect them — to me, that’s a great image of what a bishop should be.”