BALTIMORE — Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City has been elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, signaling a moderate shift among the nation’s prelates after the tenure of Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services. The vote took place on Tuesday morning during the bishops’ fall plenary assembly, being held this week at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.
The 70-year-old prelate defeated a slate of nine other candidates, including the popular media figure Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Archbishop Richard Henning of Boston, and Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit.
The second-highest vote getter, who advanced to a runoff with Coakley, was noted Pope Francis ally Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, who was thereafter elected vice president in a landslide.
Today the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announces the election of new leadership. Our prayers accompany the newly elected President and Vice President as they embark on a three-year term, committed to advancing the mission of the Church in the United States.… pic.twitter.com/h6es827yA2
— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) November 11, 2025
A native of Louisiana and Kansas, Coakley was ordained for the Diocese of Wichita in 1983, after studying at the University of Kansas; St. Pius X Seminary in Erlanger, Kentucky; and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He had previously considered a vocation as a Benedictine monk in France.
Before becoming a bishop, Coakley served as a chaplain and parish priest in Kansas before studying at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome where he earned a licentiate in theology. He later served as a seminary official in Emmitsburg and became vice chancellor of the Diocese of Wichita in 2004.
Coakley was appointed Bishop of Salina the same year, a role in which he served for six years. During that time, he became a member of several USCCB committees, including those for home missions, clergy and vocations, as well as evangelization and catechesis.
Coakley was appointed Archbishop of Oklahoma City in 2011, where he has now served across the tenures of three popes.
Considered a moderate voice in the American episcopal scene, he nevertheless supported the self-exiled (and now excommunicated) former U.S. nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò after he accused Pope Francis in 2018 of covering up sex abuse allegations against then-cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington.
Coakley has also been an outspoken advocate on various social issues, including calls to ban the death penalty, abortion, and state support for gender ideology.
As chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Coakley was also co-author of a number of statements against racism—including in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, the same year in response to disparate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Black communities, and in praise of the Biden administration’s actions to combat housing discrimination and mass incarceration in 2021.
Coakley also joined his fellow USCCB chairmen in writing to Congress concerning police reform after Floyd’s murder, and had penned his own column in 2017, “Racism is a Sin,” after the Charlottesville car attack perpetrated by a White Supremacist.
Coakley most recently served as secretary of the USCCB, a position he was elected to in 2022 to complete the term of Archbishop Broglio following his election as president that year. Coakley was reelected as secretary in 2023. His three-year term as president will begin at the close of this year’s fall meeting, which runs through Nov. 13.
USCCB vice president-elect Flores will begin his tenure at the same time, having served since 2020 as chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine. He previously headed the Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church and was on the Vatican’s Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod in 2024, having helped to lead the U.S. contributions to Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality. He was a delegate to the Synod in 2023 and 2024, serving as co-chair of discussion tables.
In Baltimore this week, Tuesday’s remaining public sessions will be livestreamed on YouTube, and the final day of public sessions will take place on Wednesday afternoon.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
