The life of Bishop Michael Phạm has been shaped by movements across borders. Born in Việt Nam and displaced at a young age, he now serves as the bishop of San Diego. His personal history, marked by exile, memory, and rebuilding, mirrors that of many Vietnamese Catholics in the diaspora, many of whom were also once refugees seeking a new life in the United States.
In this interview with The Vietnamese Magazine, Bishop Phạm reflects on how early experiences of loss and resilience have informed his understanding of faith, his pastoral approach to migrant communities, and his vision of the Church in a multicultural society.
You were born in Việt Nam and experienced displacement at a very young age. How has that early experience shaped the way you understand suffering and faith?
I was born in 1967 in Đà Nẵng and grew up in a family where we were very happy and joyful. Growing up, I went to church with my grandparents, particularly with my grandmother. By 1975, when I turned eight years old, we had to migrate further south because of the North Vietnam invasion. I was on a rice barge floating in the ocean for three or four days without food or water, and as an eight-year-old, I had terrible, terrible motion sickness. On that trip, many people passed away. As I look back, I think that none of my family got hurt or died; looking at that afterwards, it was such a grace for us that we all managed to survive.
In 1975, after this migration, my family moved to a farm, where we lived under the Communist regime. Because of that, it was a difficult time: we didn’t have money, we didn’t have a lot of resources for a big family, and my dad had to go and find a job. I had an older sister who helped my mom with the business, but we all lived by farming.
At 8, I already started farming with my parents. We cultivated rice, corn, and sweet potatoes, and we also raised pigs. Growing up, I started recognizing suffering and hardship. On top of that, we had a couple of years of famine in which we didn’t have a lot of food, and for a couple of years, we had pretty much just one meal a day. And that was hard enough.
In 1981, I, my sister, and my younger brother were able to escape, stopping first at a refugee camp in Malaysia. And from there, someone from the United States sponsored us to come to America.
We were very grateful that an American family was sponsoring us to come and live in this country. It was such an opportunity for me.
I put a lot of effort into my education and started to work on common jobs, as a young person would do, but my focus was on education. The rest of my family came a couple of years later. We lived in Minnesota, but because it was so cold, we moved to San Diego in 1985. While in San Diego, I continued my studies. I finished my degree in aerospace engineering. And after graduating from college, I worked for a couple of years but didn’t find fulfillment.
I felt there was some emptiness in me. After what I experienced growing up, of my grandmother taking me to church and praying together with my family, I realized I needed to turn to God. Not that God had been away from me in my life in any way, but I deepened my faith through reflection and learning more about what this life is all about.
I questioned it when I was in college: What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose? I then entered into a deeper relationship with God. So after two years of working, I entered the seminary.
First, I felt a sense of peace in my heart, and I knew something was right. Second, I recognized that things in my family were much more peaceful; everything was taken care of while I was studying to be a priest. I became a priest, and within around five years I studied philosophy and theology.
Because I already had a degree in engineering, that cut short the time for my study in theology to become a priest. I just wanted to be a good priest, to serve God’s people, to recognize that while growing up, I had faced my struggle with life without resources, and I saw the poor people in our community and the life of the people around me. I wanted to support and help the journey of the poor and needy in our society. And that’s why I wanted to become a priest, to be with the people.
It was amazing when I was appointed an auxiliary bishop for the diocese. Who would have thought that a person like me would ever become a bishop in the United States? And I was so grateful to Pope Francis, who recognized in 2023 what I have been doing here. Then in just less than two years as an auxiliary bishop, I was appointed by Pope Leo as the first Vietnamese to be appointed as an ordinary bishop in the United States, which is such a tremendous honor for the Vietnamese in this country.
How do your personal memories inform your pastoral approach, especially toward migrants and refugees?
Soon after I was appointed to be the ordinary bishop for the Diocese of San Diego, the issue of immigration erupted in America. We immediately recognized how people are suffering and how families were distressed and separated after living together for so many years.
All these things were happening, and we as the Church had to stand with them, to be in solidarity with them. As a refugee and an immigrant here in this country myself, I understood that I could identify with the people here.
I wanted to be with them, I wanted to walk with them, and I wanted to support them in any way that I could without breaking the law by being with these people in their time of need. And we, as the Church, needed to be present not just by words that we spoke while in the pulpit, but also by our actions.
To be present with the people, I think, is a tremendous need at this time. Many families have been torn apart, as we are seeing what has been playing out in Minneapolis, where people are trying to support one another, being out there together, being present, and fighting. Seeing what is happening in the videos is so sad and heartbreaking.
In the eyes of God, we are created in his image and likeness, and we need to treat one another with dignity and respect. And yet, it’s sad to see and experience these things in a country that promotes liberty and democracy.
Did your relationship with migrants and the refugee communities change from your early days as a priest?
When I was a priest, I was always with the people, joining them in their faith, being there when they were sick, when they were unemployed, or when they didn’t have food on the table for their families. Now, as a bishop and being the voice for the people, particularly for us in the diocese of San Diego, people have been very grateful that I am speaking up for them and being there for them.
Last night in our diocese we had a march, and we gathered 2,000 people walking from a park to a church, and along the way, we stopped at a certain point where people had been beaten up and detained by ICE and then were deported. So we stopped at those locations.
We began to pray, share, and reflect on the situation we’re facing today. It didn’t affect just the leaders of the Catholic Church, but other faiths were also coming together as one human family. Our city, San Diego, is very multicultural; we have numbers of ethnic groups, and yet we come together. To me, it’s like a glimpse of the kingdom of God. We are here to help people and to journey with them.
The Vietnamese Catholic community has a strong presence in San Diego. How does sharing a similar cultural background influence your relationship with them as a bishop?
I lived pretty much my whole life in San Diego, far from my home country. But we actually do have a good contingent of Vietnamese in our city. Even though we have a lot of Vietnamese, Catholics are a small percentage of our community. We are very faithful and very devotional, but we go to church as a community, supporting one another.
When I became a priest, most of my time was spent working with multicultural communities, including Vietnamese, Hispanics, Filipinos, and Americans, and we were living and sharing our lives together. It’s a very beautiful experience, and the Vietnamese I met had a deep faith and were very involved in the Church. And I found it the same way when I became a bishop.
The Vietnamese throughout the United States invited me to be a part of their community, to their functions, and so on. They’re very involved in religious activities, and I’m very grateful that I have had the opportunity to experience and see our own people contribute to the life of faith in this country.
Do you see this bicultural identity of yours as a resource for the Church in a diverse society like the United States? Do you have some advice for other priests that might want to pursue this life? Particularly, do you have any advice for priests who come from a migrant background?
Every person needs to have an open mind and heart to allow God’s grace and God’s guidance in our lives. And we, as Christians and in particular as Catholics, have the mission to evangelize, to touch the lives of the people, and to encounter Christ in our lives.
The more we know, the more we are equipped to serve, to extend ourselves, to invite others, and to encounter Christ in their lives and be open to all cultures and ethnicities. And in doing so, we ourselves can learn so much from others.
And in learning from others, we are very rich as people, knowing what life is all about. And in doing so, we are able to serve others better. In the multicultural context, we are able to bring people together and help them to recognize the vision. It’s not easy, but it’s a worthy goal. As priests and as bishops, we need to have that mindset.
I’m sure that priests and bishops certainly have this vision, but at times, I think our own personality, our own life, can be an obstacle to this process. And so we have to get ourselves out of the way and let God do his work by using us as an instrument.
If you could send a message to your fellow Catholics in Việt Nam, what would it be?
I would love to share with them that our mission in life is to help people encounter Jesus. And because in Việt Nam today the number of people living there is huge while the number of Catholics is still a small percentage, I hope that every one of us, by virtue of baptism, is able to live their lives not just by words, but by actions, to help one another, to be united, and to meet Jesus in our journey.
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Bishop Michael Phạm does not speak about migration and suffering as ideas but as something he has lived. The memories of leaving Việt Nam, of loss and rebuilding, remain close to the way he understands his role today. As the voice of a border diocese, his words point to a simple conviction: faith is shown in staying close to people, especially when their lives are uncertain.
