CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Diocese of Charlotte Bishop Peter J. Jugis, who is resigning for health reasons, according to an April 9 news release from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Pope has appointed Rev. Michael T. Martin, OFM Conv., to be Bishop Jugis’s successor. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the US, announced the change in Washington, D.C.
Axios reported that Bishop Jugis, who has led the Diocese since 2003, is retiring because of a non-life-threatening kidney condition. Rev. Martin will become the Diocese’s fifth bishop on May 29 at St. Mark Catholic Church in Huntersville, North Carolina.
Bishop-elect Martin, a member of the religious order Conventual Franciscan Province of Our Lady of the Angels, currently serves as pastor at Saint Philip Benizi Church in Jonesboro, Georgia.
According to preliminary materials that the Conference collected, Bishop-elect Martin was born Dec. 2, 1961, in Baltimore, Maryland. He entered the novitiate of the Order of Conventual Franciscan Friars in Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1979. He professed simple vows in 1980 and solemn vows in 1985. He received a bachelor’s degree from Saint Hyacinth College-Seminary in Granby, Massachusetts, in 1984 and a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology in 1988 from the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Saint Bonaventure in Rome. He earned a master’s degree in Catholic education administration from Boston College in 1993.
After Bishop-elect Martin’s ordination as a priest, which took place June 10, 1989, he was a director of admissions, religious studies teacher, moderator and coach at St. Francis High School in Athol Springs, New York, from 1989 to 1996. He then became principal, from 1996 to 2001, and, from 2001 to 2010, president, of Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore. From 2010 through 2022, he was director of the Duke University Catholic Center in Durham, North Carolina. Since that time, he has been pastor of Saint Philip Benizi Church.
He has also been an adjunct faculty member for Xavier University’s School of Education in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the provincial councilor of the Conventual Franciscan Friars of the Saint Anthony Province. His experience also includes being the president of the pastoral council for the Archdiocese of Baltimore and a regional associate for the National Catholic Educational Association. He has also served on three different school boards as well as the Priests’ Council of the Diocese of Raleigh. He has been a member of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association and the Finance Council for the Diocese of Raleigh and chaired the financial commission for Our Lady of Angels Province of the Franciscan Conventual Friars.
The Diocese of Charlotte covers 20,470 square miles in North Carolina. The area’s total population is 5,505,666, which includes 546,370 Catholics.
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