Archbishop-designate Gustavo Garcia-Siller used the weeks after the announcement of his appointment to the Archdiocese of San Antonio to bid a bittersweet goodbye to the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has been his home since 2003. The new archbishop — who has already asked the faithful of San Antonio to call him “Archbishop Gustavo” — spent time with the priests of the archdiocese Oct. 19 at a presbyteral day and celebrated Masses of Thanksgiving at Holy Name Cathedral Oct. 26 for pastoral center employees and at St. Rita High School for people from Vicariate V Nov. 1. That Mass, which drew about 1,100 people, including about 100 priests, was a reminder of the love the new archbishop shared with the people he served, he said. Among the priests concelebrating was Father Tony Vilano, rector of the Cathedral of San Fernando in San Antonio. “I am very aware that the love of God is in our midst,” Archbishop- designate Garcia-Siller said. “The love comes from God, and that’s awesome. … Jesus taught us about friendship based on love, the love of the Father for him and his love for his Father. That love led him to be obedient, even to death, death on a cross. “It is good to have a friend, and it is very good to be a friend. You have been my friends in Christ, and I have learned to be yours. I have learned to live you in the Holy Spirit.” At the Oct. 26 Mass, Cardinal George said the archdiocese is “grateful for the gift of Bishop Gustavo,” and that he will do well in his mission in Texas. “The mission of the church in every time, in every place, is to introduce the world to its Savior. Bishop Gustavo is someone who knows the Savior of the world,” Cardinal George said. Archbishop-designate Garcia- Siller took the opportunities to thank the people of the archdiocese for sharing their faith and to say that the faithful in Chicago will travel with him to San Antonio in his heart and in his prayers. “It has been good, very good,” Archbishop-designate Garcia- Siller said. “There is no one day to regret. I take all the love from my local church, the affection, the care. The love of God and the love of the church is with me.” Arrived ‘trembling’ When Archbishop-designate Garcia-Siller came to Chicago in early 2003, he was not yet a bishop. He had been provincial of the U.S. province of his order, the Mexico-based Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, for a very short time, and had not spent much time in Chicago. He arrived — “trembling,” he said — for the announcement on a January day with temperatures in the teens and without a winter coat. He assumed responsibility for the vicariate with the largest number of parishes — 79 — and the most Catholics of any in the archdiocese, taking in a diverse swath of the Southwest Side and Southwest suburbs, and acted as Cardinal George’s liaison to the burgeoning Hispanic Catholic community. Over the years, his ministry emphasized reaching out to victims of violence and immigrants, and he advocated for comprehensive immigration reform. He often told of his own experience, a bishop of Chicago and naturalized U.S. citizen, being detained for two hours at Midway Airport on a flight home from Mexico. While he had a special mission to the Latino community, he became beloved by members of all the ethnic groups he served. “Chicago is a beautiful community, very challenging but very alive,” Archbishop-designate Gustavo Garcia-Siller said. “There are all these issues, these people, these religious celebrations. … How beautiful is the faith and how it blooms in different areas.” He has made an effort to unify his vicariate, bringing together parishes as disparate as St. Stephen Deacon and Martyr in Tinley Park and St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church, St. Clare of Montefalco and Our Lady of the Ridge in Chicago Ridge, for Masses and celebrations, and created the Centro Espiritu Santo for the formation of clergy and lay leaders who do Hispanic ministry in Vicariate V. Recalling his vicariate ministry at the Oct. 26 Mass, he said, “We have done well. We have ministered well to God’s people. … It’s very consoling and gratifying. I feel the Lord is very pleased.” Father Edward Upton, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Orland Park will serve as interim vicar in Vicariate V until a new bishop is appointed. ‘Gracias’ “Latinos, I am proud to have touched your faith in your daily struggles and in your occasions of joy,” he said. “Gracias for your fidelity to Christ. You are a seed of hope in our church.”Archbishop-designate Garcia- Siller’s ministry in Vicariate V often overlapped with Hispanic ministry, with several predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods in the vicariate. He spoke directly to Latino Catholics at the Oct. 26 Mass. In an earlier interview, he talked about ministering to Hispanics as they struggled for immigration reform. “I have the experience of walking with them in very difficult times, and in very joyful times,” he said. “In the last few days, I see the images right here; it’s like I’m there again.” Meanwhile, he is preparing to take on the responsibility of shepherding an archdiocese that has more than twice as many parishes as his former vicariate. When Cardinal George told him of the call, he said, he was surprised and delighted, but also felt the weight of it settle on his shoulders. When he spoke to the papal nuncio, he said, “Yes, here I am. I was very much at peace. I felt a very deep and profound joy, but I also felt the heaviness of the responsibility and the mission. That kind of weight is there. It’s good. It’s a reminder that I’m holding something important. I am going to help the Lord. “I will have to find the art to combine ministry to actual persons with the administration,” Archbishop-designate Garcia- Siller said. “But the Lord has never left me, and I am going to work with others. I don’t have all the expertise. I will be guided and I will be supported.” At the Nov. 1 Mass, Cardinal George spoke after Communion, thanking God for the great gift that the new archbishop has been for the Archdiocese of Chicago. “In these days, you hear a lot of talk about transparency,” Cardinal George said, “Gustavo, what you have brought us is transparency of soul, transparency of soul that we will miss. But you will be a great archbishop of San Antonio.” The new archbishop said he is counting on love and prayers from his flock in Chicago. “For these seven and a half years, I have been one with you. I have seen the Holy Spirit, el Espiritu Santo, at work within you,” he said at the Oct. 26 Mass. “I cannot go without you. I go with you to serve my new church with passion and love … As long as there is a heart in me, you will find a home.” About the Archbishop Born: Dec. 21, 1956 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Family: Oldest of 15 children of Gustavo Garcia Suarez and Maria Cristina Siller de Garcia. His brother, Eugene, is a diocesan priest. His sister, Myriam, is a member of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit women’s congregation. Religious order: entered the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in 1973 Ordained: a priest June 22, 1984 in Guadalajara, Mexico; a bishop March 19, 2003 in Chicago Other appointments: U.S. Provincial Superior Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, January 2003