Pope Francis names Ohio pastor of four parishes as bishop of Sioux City, Iowa

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop R. Walker Nickless, 77, from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, and appointed Father John E. Keehner Jr., pastor of four parishes, to succeed him.

Bishop Nickless, a Denver native who has been Sioux City’s shepherd since 2005, is two years past the age at which canon law requires bishops to submit their resignation to the pope. Bishop-designate Keehner, a priest of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, is currently pastor of four parishes in the northeast Ohio diocese.

The resignation and appointment were publicized in Washington Feb. 12 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Bishop Nickless’ appointment was one of the first made by Pope Benedict XVI after the death of St. John Paul II. The bishop, one of 10 children, was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver in 1973 and later served as that archdiocese’s vicar general.

Upon learning he had been appointed bishop of Sioux City, then-Msgr. Nickless admitted to an “immediate sensation of unworthiness,” but affirmed he wanted to be “a good pastor, a good father, and a good Shepherd,” one who worked “very closely” with that diocese’s priests “to do the work of the Lord,” according to his episcopal biography posted on the diocesan website.

Bishop Nickless also established a strategic planning task force in 2007, and backed a five-year plan for parish reorganizations in October 2009.

An updated version of his 2009 pastoral letter, “Ecclesia Semper Reformanda” (“The Church is Always in Need of Renewal”), was released in 2018 with a study guide. The letter reiterated the need for renewed Eucharistic spirituality and improved catechesis that prioritized adult faith formation to better serve future generations of Catholics. Such steps would in turn “foster faithful families” and a culture of vocation, he said, noting that Catholics must also embrace the call to missionary discipleship.

The 59-year-old Bishop-designate Keehner is a Youngstown, Ohio native who after his seminary studies obtained a licentiate in canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (also known as the Angelicum) in Rome.

Ordained in 1993, he has served in a number of roles at the Diocese of Youngstown, including as vice rector and then later rector of its St. Columba Cathedral; as a diocesan tribunal judge; as pastoral director at Youngstown State University; and since 2024 as pastor of Our Lady of Peace in Ashtabula, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Geneva, Corpus Christi in Conneaut and St. Andrew Bobola in Kingsville.

In a February 2022 post for the Catholic blog SpiritualDirection.com, then-Father Keehner reflected that Jesus, fully aware of our sinfulness and shortcomings, nonetheless “calls upon us to look him in the eyes and recognize that God alone is holy.”

In recognizing both God’s holiness and human sinfulness, “we can allow ourselves to be transformed into something and someone new … sons and daughters who share in the dignity of our Creator by virtue of our creation and our baptism,” he wrote.

God “constantly calls back to himself, never giving up on us,” he said, “forever challenging us to hear his voice calling to us in the depths of our hearts … that we might respond with open arms and open hearts in the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Here I am Lord, send me.'”

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