Front-row Vatican coverage:
Ken Stone

Ken Stone

Ken Stone is a contributing editor to Times of San Diego. He has worked at the San Diego Daily Transcript, San Diego Business Journal and The San Diego Union-Tribune, where over two dozen years he was a news and sports copy editor and part of a SignOnSanDiego.com team that won national honors for coverage of the 2003 San Diego County wildfires. He launched the AOL-owned La Mesa Patch in 2010 and eventually became associate regional editor of the hyperlocal news network in San Diego. Ken is a Phi Beta Kappa journalism graduate of the University of Kansas.

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Bishop Michael Pham receives the apostolic mandate from Pope Leo XIV at the Mass installing him as head of the San Diego Diocese on July 17, 2025, at St. Thérèse of Carmel Parish in San Diego. (NCR photo/Chris Stone)

Pham, first Vietnamese American bishop to head US diocese, installed in San Diego

Bishop Michael Pham already has become a prominent church activist for protection of undocumented immigrants. At his installation Mass, the new shepherd likened himself to Yoda in "Star Wars" — "ready to lead."

San Diego Bishop-designate Michael Pham follows Jesuit Fr. Scott Santarosa into the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building on Friday morning, June 20, in downtown San Diego. (Chris Stone)

San Diego faith leaders say their presence made a difference at deportation hearings

Bishop-designate Michael Pham joined religious leaders who showed support and prayed with immigrants and refugees facing deportation hearings in San Diego on World Refugee Day.

San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Michael Pham appears at a press conference on May 22, when he was announced as the new head of the San Diego Diocese. (Ken Stone)

From refugee to bishop of San Diego, Michael Pham fled Vietnam in 1980 at age 13

Picked to lead the San Diego Diocese, Michael Pham is Pope Leo XIV's first appointment of a bishop in the United States. Pham's appointment also makes him the first Vietnamese American to lead a U.S. diocese.

Cardinal Robert McElroy addresses reporters Feb. 27 at the San Diego Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in his final news conference as San Diego's Catholic spiritual leader.(NCR photo//Chris Stone)

Cardinal McElroy, incoming Washington archbishop, has no plans to meet Trump

The church's role in the nation's capital is not to steer policy but to give witness to those affected by national initiatives, Cardinal Robert McElroy said Feb. 27 in his final news conference as San Diego archbishop.

Following a prayer service for migrants in San Diego, California, participants march from the city's Catholic cathedral to the Federal Building (Chris Stone)

Cardinal McElroy decries White House 'war of fear and terror' on migrants

Cardinal Robert McElroy decried the White House crackdown on undocumented immigrants as a "war of fear and terror," speaking at a prayer service on Sunday just days after federal cuts forced the U.S. bishops' conference to lay off 50 employees in its migrant resettlement office.

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