Jaime Soto
Jaime Soto was born on December 31, 1955, in Inglewood, California, and attended Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He studied at Saint John's Seminary in Camarillo, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1978 and a Master of Divinity in 1982, and he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Orange in 1982. He later earned a Master of Social Work from Columbia University in 1986, and that social-work formation, rather than academic theology, has run through his ministry ever since.
In Orange he worked where the Church meets people in trouble: director of Catholic Charities from 1986, episcopal vicar for the Hispanic community from 1989, and vicar for charities from 1999, with monthly services for inmates at the Orange County Jail and counseling for Hispanics diagnosed with AIDS among the work he has named as his proudest. Pope John Paul II named him a monsignor in 1990 and appointed him auxiliary bishop of Orange on March 23, 2000; he was consecrated on May 31, 2000, and served under Bishop Tod Brown until Sacramento called.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him coadjutor bishop of Sacramento on October 11, 2007, he was received at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on November 19, 2007, and he succeeded Bishop William Weigand on November 30, 2008, when Weigand retired for health reasons. The see covers twenty counties of northern California. Soto, who learned Spanish as an adult, has made Hispanic ministry and immigration advocacy the signature of his Sacramento years, urging Latinos to be greater protagonists in the Church, while policing the boundaries of communion firmly, as the Leatherby cases show.
- 2021-07TRACKER REPORT ONLY: the Traditionis Custodes tracker, quoting the Fraternity's provincial, reports that the Diocese of Sacramento reached out to the FSSP pastor at St. Stephen the First Martyr to reassure him that no changes were foreseen to the parish, and that Soto followed with a personal email expressing his esteem and support. Recorded as a report, not as a governing act, and not as sole support for any claim. ↗
- 2025ROME PERMISSION FOR THE DIOCESE: the Summarium Decretorum for 2025 lists Sacramento among the dioceses granted permission for celebrations according to the 1962 Missal in parish churches. Such decrees issue on a bishop's request, so this is counted as a dispensation sought and granted in Soto's tenure; the parish or parishes covered are not named in the reporting consulted, so the site-level attribution is left open. ↗
- 2026CONTINUATION, NOT AN ACT: St. Mary, Vacaville, still lists a Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday at 2 p.m., and the FSSP apostolate page still lists St. Stephen the First Martyr, Sacramento, as offering the Traditional Latin Mass and sacraments. Both pre-TC sites thus continue through the TC era with no restriction found. ↗
Bishop Soto's TC-era record is quiet, and quiet is the point. He issued no public implementation statement in July 2021; the bishops' survey of that month recorded Sacramento as having no response. What the record does show is that nothing closed: Saint Stephen the First Martyr, the Fraternity of Saint Peter's personal parish in Sacramento, kept its daily and Sunday Masses in the 1962 Missal, and Saint Mary in Vacaville kept its Sunday afternoon Traditional Latin Mass, and both are still listed with those Masses today.
Behind that continuity there are two acts, one reported and one documented, and the verdict rests on the documented one. The reported act is the diocese's outreach to the Fraternity pastor in July 2021, with a personal email of esteem and support from Soto himself, as carried by the Traditionis Custodes tracker; under this project's rules that is a lead, not a governing act, and it is labeled as such. The documented act is Rome's: the Summarium Decretorum for 2025 lists Sacramento among the dioceses granted permission for 1962 celebrations in parish churches, a permission that issues on a bishop's request.
Preserved, at medium confidence, is therefore the verdict: the old Mass that Soto inherited is the old Mass that still stands, and a Rome permission in his tenure underwrites it. The medium, not high, reflects the gap that must not be papered over: the reporting consulted does not name which Sacramento parish or parishes the 2025 permission covers, so whether it underwrites Vacaville, Saint Stephen, or both cannot be stated from these sources.