Bishop of Saint Augustine
Bishop Erik Thomas Pohlmeier, Bishop of Saint Augustine, was born on July 20, 1971, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and was raised at Paris, Arkansas. He studied at St. Meinrad College in Indiana from 1992 to 1994, taking a bachelor of arts in philosophy; at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from 1994 to 1997, taking a bachelor of sacred theology magna cum laude; and at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome from 1997 to 1998, taking a licentiate in spiritual theology summa cum laude. He was ordained a deacon on October 2, 1997, in St. Peter's Basilica, and he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Little Rock on July 25, 1998, at Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas. He served that diocese for twenty-four years as associate pastor and pastor of several parishes, often in rural and multilingual communities, and as director of faith formation and of deacon formation. On May 24, 2022, he was appointed Bishop of Saint Augustine. He was ordained and installed as the eleventh bishop of that see on July 22, 2022, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Jacksonville, with Thomas Gerard Wenski as principal consecrator and Anthony Basil Taylor and Felipe de Jesús Estévez as co-consecrators. His episcopal motto is Seek first the Kingdom of God.