Joseph Edward Strickland
Joseph Edward Strickland was born on October 31, 1958, in Fredericksburg, Texas. Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Dallas on June 1, 1985, he was incardinated into the newly erected Diocese of Tyler in 1987 and spent his priesthood in East Texas. Pope Benedict XVI appointed him the fourth Bishop of Tyler on September 29, 2012, and he was consecrated on November 28 of that year, taking a small rural diocese he would make famous far beyond its borders.
He consecrated the diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 2017, championed the Fraternity of St. Peter's parish of St. Joseph the Worker, and on Corpus Christi 2020 celebrated the Traditional Latin Mass himself for the first time, having learned it with the Fraternity's help. When Traditionis Custodes came in 2021 he declined to restrict the rite in Tyler, saying, 'I can't starve out part of my flock,' and his pastoral letters defended the Real Presence and the deposit of faith to a large national following.
In May 2023 he posted that he believed Pope Francis was 'undermining the Deposit of Faith.' A Vatican-ordered apostolic visitation examined his governance that summer; after he refused a request to resign, Pope Francis removed him from Tyler on November 11, 2023, with no official reason given. He remains a bishop without a diocese, keeping an active ministry of pilgrimages, public rosaries and preaching. A year after his removal, Tyler's diocesan Latin Masses were prohibited, leaving only the FSSP parish he had championed.
- 2020-06On Corpus Christi 2020 he celebrated the Traditional Latin Mass himself for the first time, having learned the older rite with the help of Fraternity of St. Peter priests: 'It was the first time in my life that I had ever said those words in Latin, and I could hardly get them out.' ↗
- 2023-11-11Removed from the office of Bishop of Tyler by Pope Francis, after an apostolic visitation of his governance and his refusal of a request to resign; no official reason was given. He had declined to restrict the old Mass in his diocese: 'I can't starve out part of my flock.' A year later, on 30 November 2024, the apostolic administrator ended the Traditional Latin Mass at all five diocesan locations; only the FSSP parish was exempted. ↗
Of all the living American bishops, none has paid a higher price for the Mass of Ages than Joseph Strickland. He came to the old rite late — by his own account he had not said the words of consecration in Latin once in thirty-five years of priesthood — and then, having found it, he would not let it go. When Traditionis Custodes came in 2021 and bishop after bishop moved to restrict and suppress, Strickland refused, in words that have become a kind of banner: 'I can't starve out part of my flock.'
He defended the ancient Mass in public when it was costly to do so, calling its treatment under the new regime a distortion that handles the Mass 'as though it were a poison that must be eliminated.' He governed a small Texas diocese with a loud voice and an unbending orthodoxy — and in November 2023, after refusing to resign, he was removed from his see. The Holy See gave no official reason. But a year to the day after his removal, the Vatican stripped the Traditional Latin Mass from the whole Diocese of Tyler — every location but a single Fraternity of St. Peter parish — and the faithful drew their own conclusion.
We render the verdict plainly. Whatever one makes of his bluntness toward the Holy Father — and prudence may fault the manner — on the one question this page asks, Bishop Strickland stood exactly where a shepherd should stand. He kept the old Mass for his people when keeping it was dangerous, and he gave up his diocese rather than take it from them. He is, without qualification, a friend of Tradition — and something rarer still: a confessor for it. May he be vindicated.