Before last week, Rev. Thomas Hennen of Davenport, Iowa, had no idea the Vatican was considering him as a potential new bishop, or that he would soon be asked to move more than 1,800 miles away to Redmond, Oregon.

So it naturally came as a great surprise when Hennen received a call from the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington, D.C., who serves as an ambassador for the church, informing him that Pope Leo XIV had selected him as the next Bishop of the Diocese of Baker.

“My heart is racing — it’s kind of surreal,” Hennen said in an interview with OPB. “It’s kind of like in one of those movies where you just see the screen kind of start to tilt on you.”

Hennen accepted the position, taking charge of a diocese larger in area than his home state of Iowa, yet home to only around 35,000 Catholics. At 47 years old, he will also become the youngest bishop in the U.S. to lead a diocese.

The Diocese of Baker encompasses all of Oregon east of the Cascades. It spans nearly 67,000 square miles, a large geographic area with 36 parishes and 21 missions. The diocese’s home cathedral, St. Francis de Sales in Baker City, is a four-hour drive from its headquarters in Redmond.

Hennen replaces the outgoing bishop, Liam Carey, who has served in the role since 2012. Carey said in a July 10 press conference that he received many emails after Hennen’s appointment was made public.

“What I’ve learned of his story and what I’ve heard from other people,” Carey said, “is that he was a very well-chosen bishop.”

Hennen joined the priesthood 21 years ago and has spent his entire career in the Diocese of Davenport, where he grew up as the youngest of 11 children. He previously had very little experience with Oregon, other than visiting family when he was a child, he said.

“It feels kind of like an adventure to me,” Hennen said.

Hennen became known in wider Catholic circles for participating in LGBTQ+ ministries during his time in Davenport. That includes working for the past decade with Courage International, a controversial organization that encourages sexual abstinence for gay and lesbian people.

He also helped publish a 2023 guideline for his diocese on ministering to LGBTQ+ people, which received praise from some queer Catholic organizations. New Ways Ministry, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, called the guidelines ​​”perhaps the single most affirming official statement on transgender inclusion to arise from the U.S. Catholic hierarchy.”

Hennen said his goal with the ministry was to ensure that the spiritual needs of LGBTQ+ Catholics are being met.

“We know what the moral teaching of the Church is. We’re not bending that or trying to kind of turn that on its head,” he said. “But I’m trying to figure out — as a pastor, as a priest, and in a diocese — how do I minister to the person sitting across the desk from me?”

By comparison, his predecessor, Carey, wrote that blessings for people in same-sex relationships could not “be carried out scandal-free in the Diocese of Baker.” Following Pope Francis’ declaration in 2023 that such blessings were allowed, Carey asked priests in his diocese not to perform them.

Asked how he would measure success during his time as bishop, Hennen said he wants to spend his first few months listening and getting to know the needs of his parishioners. But he hopes to lead “a thriving, wonderful and vibrant diocese,” he said.

“So much of the church’s success never gets measured in this life,” he said. “But I keep doing it, and I trust that it will bear fruit in time and eternity.”

Hennen will be officially ordained as bishop at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Bend on Sept. 18.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/18/bishop-diocese-baker-thomas-hennen-pope-leo-xiv-appoints-catholics-central-eastern-oregon/