Alberto Rojas
Alberto Rojas was born January 5, 1965, in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico, one of eight children of a devoutly Catholic family. He entered the diocesan seminary in Aguascalientes at fifteen, then transferred to the University of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois, where he earned a Master of Divinity. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 24, 1997, at Holy Name Cathedral by Cardinal Francis George.
As a Chicago priest he served in parishes, taught on the faculty of Mundelein Seminary, and became Cardinal George's liaison to Hispanic Catholics — Hispanic and immigrant ministry being the defining thread of his ministry. Pope Benedict XVI named him an auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 2011 (consecrated August 10, 2011).
Pope Francis appointed Rojas coadjutor bishop of San Bernardino on December 2, 2019, and he succeeded Bishop Gerald Barnes as the diocese's third ordinary on December 28, 2020. San Bernardino is one of the largest U.S. dioceses by geography and heavily Hispanic. His public profile is that of a pastoral, immigrant-focused, Francis-aligned bishop, and he drew national attention in 2025 for his response to aggressive immigration enforcement in his diocese.
On the specific question of the Traditional Latin Mass, Rojas has a better deeds-record than most bishops of his generation and region. When Traditionis Custodes landed in July 2021, he did not use it to shut anything down. His decree granted a dispensation from Article 3 §2 so the 1962-Missal Mass could continue on its existing schedule at the two parishes that already offered it — San Secondo d'Asti in Ontario and Sacred Heart in Palm Desert. Both Masses were still being offered into 2025–2026, meaning the old rite survived in San Bernardino through the harsher 2023 rescript era. That is preservation, not persecution.
The honest qualifiers keep this short of a full 'friend' verdict. His preservation was of the status quo only: he did not expand access, did not invite the FSSP, ICKSP, or any traditional institute despite petitions asking him to, and his engagement with the movement appears limited to letting the existing Masses stand. His overall orientation is pastoral-progressive and immigrant-centered rather than liturgically traditional — most visible in his July 2025 decree, the first in the nation to dispense frightened immigrants from the Sunday obligation amid immigration raids. The old Mass simply is not his cause.
Bottom line: Rojas is a quiet preserver. Traditional Catholics in San Bernardino kept their Mass because he chose to protect it when he had the cover to end it, and his 2021 language was irenic rather than dismissive. He is no champion of tradition and no partisan of a traditionalist worldview, but on the concrete question of whether he safeguarded or attacked the ancient Mass, his deeds land squarely on the safeguarding side — a genuinely better record than the California norm.