Bishop Allen
Vigneron was born in Mt. Clemens, Michigan on October 21, 1948, to
Elwin and Bernardine (Kott) Vigneron of Fair Haven, Michigan. The
eldest of six children (four brothers, one sister), he grew up in
Immaculate Conception Parish, Anchorville (a rural parish of the
Archdiocese of Detroit), attending the parish grade school through
eighth grade.
With encouragement
from his parents, family, grade school principal and pastor, Bishop
Vigneron entered the high school program of Sacred Heart Seminary,
Detroit, in September 1962. After completing the 12th
grade, he continued there for college. In June 1970, Bishop
Vigneron graduated with his AB degree with majors in both Philosophy
and Classical Languages.
After Sacred
Heart, he was sent to Rome to continue his theological education at
the Pontifical Gregorian University while living at the North
American College, a house of formation for seminarians from the
United States. He earned an STB (Bachelor of Sacred Theology)
degree in 1973, and in 1974 returned home to serve his transitional
deacon internship at St. Clement of Rome Parish, Romeo, in the
Detroit Archdiocese.
Bishop Vigneron
was ordained to the priesthood in the Detroit Presbyterate on July
26, 1975 at St. Clement of Rome Church, by the late Cardinal John
Dearden. His first assignment as a priest was as associate pastor
of Our Lady Queen of Peace Church, Harper Woods (a Detroit suburb).
He returned to Rome in 1976, for a year of study to complete the
work required for his STL (Licentiate in Sacred Theology) degree,
which he earned from the Gregorian University in 1977. Later that
year he returned to Michigan to resume his duties as associate
pastor of Our Lady Queen of Peace.
Cardinal Dearden
assigned Bishop Vigneron to begin graduate studies in the School of
Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.,
in the fall of 1979. He earned his MA in Philosophy in 1983 and his
Ph.D. in that field in May 1987, with a dissertation on the German
Philosopher, Edmund Husserl, the Father of Phenomenology. In
January 1985, before completing his dissertation, Bishop Vigneron
returned to Detroit to teach philosophy and theology at Sacred Heart
College Seminary. In January 1988 he was appointed dean of that
school and became a key member of the team working to realize
Cardinal Edmund Szoka’s vision for the transformation of that
institution into a “major seminary” offering graduate theological
education.
In the fall of
1991 Bishop Vigneron returned to Rome to serve as an official of the
Administrative Section of the Vatican Secretariat of State. While
there he was an adjunct instructor at the Gregorian University. In
spring of 1994, Bishop Vigneron returned to Detroit to become the
second Rector/President of the re-founded Sacred Heart Major
Seminary.
On June 12, 1996
Bishop Vigneron was named Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of
Detroit, and received Episcopal ordination from Cardinal Adam Maida,
the Archbishop of Detroit, on July 9 of that year. In addition to
continuing to fill the office of seminary rector, Bishop Vigneron
was given responsibility for the pastoral support of one of the
regions into which the Detroit Archdiocese is subdivided. On 10
January 2003 he was named Coadjutor Bishop of Oakland and succeeded
to the See of Oakland on 1 October 2003.
Bishop Vigneron
oversaw the design and construction of the new 1300 seat Cathedral
of Christ the Light situated in a complex that includes Chancery
offices, conference center facilities, a bookstore and a public
plaza located adjacent to Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland. The
Cathedral was dedicated for sacred use on September 25, 2008.
In the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Vigneron has served on
the Committee for the American College in Louvain, the Committee on
Doctrine and the Subcommittee on the Catechism.
Bishop Vigneron is
a trustee of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, St. Patrick
Seminary (Menlo Park, CA) and the Catholic University of America.
He has served on the Executive Committee of the Association of
Theological Schools and the board of the Detroit chapter of the
National Conference for Community and Justice (formerly “The
National Conference of Christians and Jews”), and the board of Ave
Maria University.