Monsignor James Vann Johnston was named Thursday to succeed John Leibrecht as bishop of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese. He will serve 65,000 catholics across southern Missouri.

Johnston, 48, has been a priest for 18 years, but before entering the priest-hood he was an engineer with a utility company in Houston, Texas.

Johnston says his mission includes "fostering the communion of church and proclaiming good news of the gospel to all."
Johnston will be installed as bishop on March 31.

Leibrecht who has been bishop for the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese for 23 years says he plans on staying in Springfield. The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau was founded in August of 1956. It includes 29 counties in Missouri.

Below is a short biography of Johnston provided by the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau:

Father James Vann Johnston, Jr. was born on October 16, 1959 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the oldest of the four children of Vann and Patricia (Huber) Johnston. He has two sisters, Amy Iverson and Beth Schmitt, both of Knoxville, and one brother, Steve, of Jackson, TN. Father Johnston attended Catholic primary and secondary schools: St. Joseph School and Knoxville Catholic High School respectively.

As a youth he was very active in the Boy Scouts of America
and was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout. Following high school, he attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and
obtained a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1982. From 1982-1985, he worked in Houston, Texas for an engineering consulting firm and for an electric utility.

In 1985, he left his occupation to pursue a call to the priesthood. From
1985-1990 he attended St. Meinrad College and School of Theology where he obtained his Master of Divinity degree. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Knoxville on June 9, 1990 at Holy Ghost Church in Knoxville, his home parish.

Since his ordination, Father Johnston has sewed as an associate pastor at St. Mary Church in Oak Ridge and at St. Jude Church in Chattanooga, where he also served as a religion instructor at Notre Dame High School. He pursued graduate studies at the Catholic University of America, where he obtained a Licentiate in Canon Law (1996). In 1996 he was named Chancellor of the Diocese of Knoxville and pad-time associate pastor at Holy Ghost Church in Knoxville, where he served until 2002.

He presently serves as both Chancellor and Moderator of the Curia of the Diocese of Knoxville and is pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Church in Alcoa, along with its mission, St. Francis, Townsend. He is a member of the diocesan College of Conductors as well as a corporate member of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. He also is a member of the Catholic Public Policy Commission of Tennessee and is active with the Knights of Columbus, Catholic Engaged Encounter and the Catholic Cursillo movement.

In addition to his priestly ministry, he enjoys sports and spending time hiking and exploring the mountains, woods, and terrain of East Tennessee and other portions of the United States and Canada. In 2005 he, along with two other priests from Tennessee, received the Citizen's Award for Bravery from the U.S. Department of the Interior for helping save a father and two of his children from plunging. over a waterfall in Glacier National Park in Montana.