Michael Izen
Michael John Izen was born on January 12, 1967, in Fairmont, Minnesota, the youngest of six children of John and JoAnna Izen, and is of Lebanese descent. He grew up in Fairmont attended St. John Vianney grade school and Fairmont High School, graduating in 1985, and then studied mathematics and computer science at St. John's University in Collegeville. On graduating he worked for the 3M Company as a systems analyst for nine years, before leaving to enter the Saint Paul Seminary.
Ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis by Archbishop Harry Flynn on May 28, 2005, at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, in one of the largest ordination classes in decades, he ministered at Divine Mercy Parish in Faribault until 2007, then as pastor of St. Timothy in Maple Lake until 2012, of St. Raphael in Crystal until 2015, and of the Churches of St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater from 2015, where he was also parochial administrator of the Church of St. Charles in Bayport and canonical administrator of St. Croix Catholic School. He has described himself as an introvert, and credited a pastor at his first assignment with teaching him to greet every table before sitting down for coffee and donuts.
Pope Francis named him an auxiliary bishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on January 5, 2023, and he was ordained a bishop on April 11, 2023, at the Cathedral of Saint Paul by Archbishop Bernard Hebda, with Auxiliary Bishops Andrew Cozzens and Joseph Williams as co-consecrators. He serves alongside Archbishop Hebda in the twelve-county metro area and remains an auxiliary bishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis at the as-of date.
Izen became an auxiliary bishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on April 11, 2023, nearly two years after Traditionis Custodes, and has served under Archbishop Bernard Hebda ever since. The archdiocese's TC-era framework was already in place before he arrived: on July 16, 2021, Hebda kept the status quo for extraordinary-form celebrations, granted the faculties for priests already celebrating them to continue, directed that the Mass continue where it was currently offered, and barred new public celebrations without his written permission, with a review task force chaired by Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens. In 2026 Hebda named six locations where the traditional liturgy continues in the archdiocese. None of those acts was Izen's, and the task-force chairmanship in particular went to another auxiliary.
No search of archdiocesan news and the general record found any TC-era act of Izen's own on the 1962 Missal: no authorization, decree, dispensation request, appointment sustaining a celebration, or celebration of his own. That absence is unsurprising given the shape of his ministry, which before and after his appointment has been parochial: Faribault, Maple Lake, Crystal, and Stillwater as a priest, and service alongside Hebda across the twelve-county metro area as a bishop, with no liturgical portfolio touching the older Missal in the published record.
The verdict is therefore no_record, and it is a verdict about his own record, not about Saint Paul and Minneapolis's. It would change only if a primary archdiocesan document surfaces showing Izen himself authorizing, restricting, or sustaining a 1962-Missal celebration in the TC era. Serving under Hebda's regime, and ministering in an archdiocese where six traditional liturgies continue under the ordinary's permission, does not count as a governing act of his. No site count is assigned to this tenure, because no source carries a count attributable to an auxiliary's own act.