David Kagan
David Dean Kagan was born November 9, 1949, in Waukegan, Illinois, and raised in Spring Grove, Illinois. He studied at Salvatorian Seminary and at Loras College/St. Pius X Seminary in Dubuque, before being sent to the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he earned a Licentiate in Canon Law from the Gregorian University (1979). He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Rockford, Illinois, on June 14, 1975.
In Rockford, Kagan spent his career largely in canonical and administrative posts: judicial vicar of the diocesan tribunal, pastor of the Proto-Cathedral of St. James, and for seventeen years vicar general and moderator of the curia. He was elevated to protonotary apostolic (hence the post-nominal 'P.A.'). Pope Benedict XVI named him the seventh Bishop of Bismarck, North Dakota, on October 19, 2011, and he was ordained and installed at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit on November 30, 2011.
As bishop, Kagan built a reputation as a doctrinally conservative, canonically precise administrator: in 2015 he ended the diocese's affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America over the organization's decision to admit openly homosexual leaders, and in June 2022 he opened the sainthood cause of North Dakota lay missionary Michelle Duppong. He turned 75 on November 9, 2024, and, as required by canon law, submitted his resignation to the pope; as of mid-2026 no successor had been named, and he continued to govern the diocese as its active bishop (past 75, resignation pending -- not emeritus).
On deeds, Bishop David Kagan sits among the more Tradition-friendly American bishops. When Traditionis Custodes landed in July 2021 and a wave of bishops suppressed or suspended the Traditional Latin Mass outright, Kagan did the opposite: by a decree effective August 1, 2021, he kept the 1962 Missal in continuous use, gave it a stable canonical home at the Oratory of St. Clement in Haymarsh, permitted it every Sunday, and appointed a priest-delegate (Rev. Nick Schneider) with genuine pastoral charge of the attached faithful. In a diocese long known for reverent, orthodox Catholicism, the old Mass survived his administration intact.
The record is not maximalist. Kagan applied the restrictive machinery of the motu proprio to the letter: he moved the Mass out of parish churches into a single non-parochial oratory, mandated the vernacular Lectionary at every celebration, capped the hour before noon, and framed the whole arrangement as obedience to Pope Francis rather than as advocacy for the traditional rite. Access for city faithful in Bismarck-Mandan narrowed even as the Mass itself was safeguarded. This is preservation-through-compliance, not resistance.
For a traditional Catholic audience the balance still tips positive. Kagan preserved what many of his brother bishops extinguished, erected rather than dismantled a home for the old Mass, and paired it with an unambiguously orthodox record on doctrine and discipline. He is regarded as a conservative, canon-law-minded shepherd who chose to keep the door open. Note the status caveat: he passed 75 in November 2024 and has submitted his resignation, but as of mid-2026 no successor had been named and he remained the active Bishop of Bismarck, not emeritus.