WASHINGTON — Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of Bishop W. Michael Mulvey, 76, from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, and has appointed Bishop Mario A. Avilés, currently auxiliary bishop of Brownsville, Texas, as his successor.
The resignation and appointment were announced in Washington Dec. 1 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Bishop Avilés was born in Mexico City on Sept. 16, 1969. After attending the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and a master of divinity from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
He was ordained a priest on July 21, 1998, for the Confederation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.
Bishop Avilés served nearly two decades in parish ministry in Pharr and Hidalgo, Texas, and later held leadership roles within the Oratory Academy and Oratory Athenaeum in Pharr, and the Confederation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, where he was procurator general between 2012 and 2018.
Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop of Brownsville in 2017, and he was ordained a bishop the following year.
The Diocese of Corpus Christi is comprised of 10,951 square miles in the State of Texas and has a total population of 582,684, of which 209,726, are Catholic.
