Vatican Names Bishop McKnight New Kansas City Archbishop

The Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kan., is welcoming Bishop Shawn McKnight as its new archbishop following a historic Vatican announcement this week. McKnight will replace the respected Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who retired, according to a recent announcement from the Catholic News Agency.

Naumann was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Kansas City in January 2004 and assumed the role of archbishop one year later when his predecessor retired. Before that, he served for nearly seven years as an auxiliary bishop of St. Louis, the archdiocese in which he had been ordained a priest in 1975. From 2018 to 2021, Naumann served as chairman of the pro-life committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for which he now serves as a consultant.

For the 56-year-old McKnight, the appointment marks a return to his home state after seven years in Missouri’s capital city. The archbishop-designate, who will be installed in the Archdiocese on May 27, said he was grateful for his seven years leading the Catholics of the Diocese of Jefferson City, his “first flock as a bishop.” Before his nomination as bishop of Jefferson City, McKnight, one of seven children, was a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, where he was ordained in 1994.

The bishop has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Dallas and both a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm in Rome. McKnight, a conservative, was an adjunct professor of theology and visiting scholar in the Bishop Gerber Institute of Catholic Studies at Newman University in Wichita from 2000 to 2001. He also served as a university chaplain.

From 2003 to 2008, McKnight taught liturgy and homiletics, and held several administrative roles, including dean of students, at the Pontifical College Josephinum, a seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He spent six years in Washington, D.C., serving as executive director of the Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations for the council of bishop before returning to serve in a parish in Wichita. Pope Francis named him the fourth bishop of Jefferson City in early 2018.

–Alan Goforth