At a recent Fourth of July cookout in New Jersey, one East Coast bishop asked another what kind of playlist he wanted to listen to while they grilled. The response was “’80s music.” And instantly, a connection was made.
“I laughed and I said, ‘Oh yeah, we must both be Gen X,’” recalled Bishop Joseph Williams of Camden, New Jersey, of his exchange with Bishop Erik Pohlmeier of St. Augustine, Florida.
But as the two bishops talked, they realized their generational connection went deeper than shared adolescent memories of Bruce Springsteen on the radio or Cheers on TV. More deeply, they shared a common set of formative factors, from the same papal hero to a similar focus on catechesis while in seminary in the 1990s.
It’s a generational profile that’s becoming increasingly common among the ranks of America’s bishops. And it suggests a new era of Church leadership could soon be upon us.
With increasing frequency, men from Generation X are being called to the American episcopate, stepping up as their baby boomer predecessors reach retirement. Born between 1965 and 1980 (46-61 years old by the end of 2026), Gen X bishops already account for one-quarter of all U.S. ordinaries,
