John Quinn Weitzel M.M.

Maryknoll

Maryknoll is a name shared by three organizations that are part of the Roman Catholic Church and whose joint focus is on the overseas mission activity of the Catholic Church in the United States...

 (born May 10, 1928) is the first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago

Roman Catholic Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States overseas dependency of American Samoa. It was canonically erected on September 10, 1982, taking territory from what once was a unified Diocese of Samoa and Tokelau...

, based in Pago Pago, American Samoa

American Samoa

American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa...

. The diocese was canonically erected on September 10, 1982.

Bishop Weitzel was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, on May 10, 1928. He was ordained a Catholic priest within the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America on June 11, 1955.

The new Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago was created in 1982 from territory carved from the Diocese of Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

 and Tokelau

Tokelau

Tokelau is a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean that consists of three tropical coral atolls with a combined land area of 10 km2 and a population of approximately 1,400...

. Pope John Paul II appointed Weitzel as the Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago's first bishop on June 9, 1986. He was ordained Bishop on October 29, 1986, and remains the head of the Diocese as of 2010.