Michael Sis
Michael James Sis was born on January 9, 1960, in Mount Holly, New Jersey, the fourth of five children of Raymond and Janice Sis, and he grew up in Bryan, Texas. He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 1982, studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and took a licentiate in moral theology from the Alphonsian Academy. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Austin on July 19, 1986, by Bishop John McCarthy.
His Austin ministry was long and parish-shaped. He served in Hispanic ministry at Cristo Rey in East Austin and in the administration of Saint Mary Cathedral, then spent thirteen and a half years at Saint Mary Catholic Center at Texas A and M, as parochial vicar and pastor from 1993 to 2006. He was the diocese's vocation director from 2006 to 2009, pastor of Saint Thomas More in Austin for a year, and vicar general and moderator of the curia from 2010 until his appointment as bishop, having been named a monsignor in 2009.
Pope Francis named him the sixth Bishop of San Angelo on December 12, 2013, and he was ordained and installed on January 27, 2014, taking as his motto Dei sumus adiutores, we are God's co-workers. The see is a vast stretch of West Texas, and Sis has governed it as a steady administrator rather than a public controversialist, serving previously on the United States bishops' Committee on Doctrine and marking forty years as a priest in July 2026. His handling of the old Mass is the most fully documented traditional record in this group.
- 2021-07-22Decree given at San Angelo: the celebration of Holy Mass according to the Roman Missal of 1962 may continue at St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, then at 1:30 p.m. on Sundays, with Scripture readings proclaimed in the vernacular from a USCCB-approved translation. He appointed Fr. Josh Gray his delegate for the 1962 celebrations and Fr. Ryan Rojo secondary delegate, and, invoking canon 87 sec. 1, dispensed from art. 3 sec. 2 so the Mass could continue in the parish church, no suitable alternative venue having been found. ↗
- 2023-10-16APPOINTMENT SUSTAINING THE MASS: Fr. Freddy Perez became parochial administrator of St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, with responsibility for the Latin Mass, while continuing as director of the Newman Center at Angelo State University. ↗
- 2025-05-28DISPENSATION SOUGHT AND GRANTED: on Sis's request of February 6, 2025, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments decreed a further two years dispensation from art. 3 sec. 2 of Traditionis Custodes, so that Mass according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 may be celebrated in the parish church of St. Margaret of Scotland in San Angelo. The 2023 rescript had reserved that dispensation to the Apostolic See, which is why the Rome route, rather than his 2021 canon 87 dispensation, now carries the permission. ↗
- 2026-08-30EXPANSION: Sis announced, through diocesan vocations director Fr. Ryan Rojo, that the Traditional Latin Mass according to the 1962 Missal would be offered at St. Ann Church, Midland, beginning Sunday, August 30, 2026, and thereafter on the last Sunday of each month at 3 p.m., with St. Margaret's weekly Mass continuing unchanged. The announcement and flyer are the sources; a post-launch Midland bulletin confirming the Masses ran was not retrieved, and whether a Rome permission covers the parish-church site at St. Ann is unestablished. ↗
Bishop Sis has the clearest paper trail in this group, and it runs in one direction: toward keeping, and then widening, lawful provision for the old Mass. Six days after Traditionis Custodes he issued a decree, not a holding statement: the 1962 Mass could continue at Saint Margaret of Scotland in San Angelo, with vernacular Scripture readings, under delegates he named, and he dispensed from the ban on parish churches because no suitable alternative venue could be found. When Rome reserved that dispensation to itself in 2023, he did not let the permission lapse into dispute; he asked Rome, and in May 2025 the Dicastery for Divine Worship granted a further two years for Saint Margaret's parish church.
That alone would be preserved. What moves the verdict to expanded is August 2026, when Sis added a second site: a monthly Traditional Latin Mass at Saint Ann in Midland, on the last Sunday of the month, announced as a beginning, with other diocesan priests to learn the rite in the months ahead. A second site where there was one, with the first unchanged, is expansion by any plain measure, even though the new Mass is monthly rather than weekly.
Two qualifications belong in the same breath. The Midland announcement rests on the diocesan announcement and parish flyer rather than a post-launch bulletin, and whether a Rome permission covers Saint Ann as a parish church is not established in the sources found. And Sis is no traditionalist partisan: his July 2026 statement on the Society of Saint Pius X ordinations warned the faithful against adhering to that schism and pointed them instead to Saint Margaret's, celebrated with permission from the Holy See. His traditional record is that of a bishop working inside the discipline, and widening it where the discipline allows.