New Prelate in Town

From a Vietnamese refugee boat to The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, Bishop Peter Dai Bui has blazed a singular life path. 

On a November night in 1977, a fishing boat crowded with Vietnamese refugees charted a perilous escape to Bangkok. The five-day passage was beset by pirate encounters and a baby’s birth before the vessel made it to Thailand. It was dangerous, and terrifying. But for the families aboard, the trip was also their only hope. 

In a now-famous picture of the boat by American photojournalist Eddie Adams, you can see the unsmiling face of a little boy peering from behind a woman’s arm. The child was Peter Dai Bui, a scared 5-year-old fleeing with his parents and siblings. 

The boy couldn’t have known that fate would take him from Thailand to Texas to Louisiana – and ultimately to Arizona, where on February 17, 2026, Pope Leo XIV would ordain him auxiliary bishop of The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix. It was a historic moment, and one emblematic of the church’s continued growth in the West and Southwest, as former Catholic strongholds like Chicago, New York and Latin America face declining membership.

It’s logical to connect Bui’s refugee story with his path to priesthood. He does, in fact, credit his refugee experience as deepening his faith in both God and in humanity: “When you’re putting your life on the line, it teaches you about trust.”

But if he’s honest? It was an Atari 2600 that led Bishop Bui to the church. In the early 1980s, the Bui family had settled in New Orleans and were living on limited means. Bui, then 12, was desperate for the popular video game console. But his parents couldn’t afford it. So, he made a deal with God. 

“I said, ‘Lord, I’ll do anything you want,’” Bui recalls. “‘I’ll go to Mass every day. Just please give us an Atari.’”

The console never materialized, but Bui kept up his end of the bargain. And found his calling – two years later, at the age of 14, he joined the seminary. 

“Be careful what you ask God for,” he laughs. “He’ll give you so much more.”

Bui started his seminary studies at Legion of Christ Minor Seminary in Connecticut, where he mastered five languages, and he completed his coursework at Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome. The young seminarian was ordained to the priesthood in 2003, then served as a missionary priest in Venezuela and Colombia before joining the Diocese of Phoenix in 2007. 

“When I arrived here, my first impression was of a young, vibrant diocese,” Bui says. “Diverse, too. People from different countries, people of different ages.”

The Official Catholic Directory, published annually by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, lists Phoenix as the second-largest diocese in the nation, and the fastest-growing, with more than half a million people joining in the last decade.

Dioceses typically have one bishop. (Here, it’s John Dolan.) But for dioceses that are expanding, especially rapidly, the Pope can appoint auxiliary bishops to assist the bishop in church governance. 

In 2010, the Pope appointed Phoenix’s first: Eduardo Nevares. This year, Bui became the second in the diocese’s 56-year history. (The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the biggest in the United States; it has six auxiliary bishops.) 

Bui represents a burgeoning diversity among clergy and community, particularly that of Vietnamese Americans. The Pew Research Center says 30 percent of Vietnamese Americans identify as Catholic, a percentage expected to grow, perhaps more quickly after Michael Pham’s 2025 appointment as bishop of The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. Pham is the first Vietnamese American to head a U.S. diocese. Like Bui, he was a former refugee.   

Bui finds his new role as auxiliary bishop both exciting and challenging. 

“When you love the people you serve, you find ways to help them grow in their faith without telling them what to do,” he says. “You can be a true shepherd. People, first and foremost, need to feel loved.” 

Love seems to be Bui’s guiding principle. No longer that solemn child on a refugee boat, Bui today smiles big, and laughs often. He likes shipbuilding; playing basketball; cheering on the New Orleans Saints; discovering the best pho in town (at the Vietnamese Martyrs Church on Northern Avenue); reading Charles Dickens novels; and watching movies (his favorite: I Confess, an Alfred Hitchcock thriller about a priest wrongly accused of murder after taking the confession of the killer). 

Bui moves through the world with lightness and joy, and a buoyancy that draws people to him, like the passersby who stop to say hello as he walks outside St. Mary’s Basilica. 

But when asked about the role of the church in the world today, the bishop quiets, thoughtful. The issues troubling the Vatican, like the church’s internal polarization surrounding doctrine and worship style, could be seen as a reflection of global challenges – religious, secular or otherwise.   

“That’s a good question,” he muses. “Pope Francis started it, and Pope Leo XIV says it: The church needs to walk with the people. If you don’t, you can’t see their struggles, and you won’t see their joys, either. You’ll never see them for who they really are. And you can’t love someone you don’t know.”

And that Atari 2600? Well, it appears God really does work in mysterious ways. To celebrate Bui’s ordination as auxiliary bishop, a colleague surprised him with his very own Atari. There’s a photo. In it, Bui beams.  

– Jessica Dunham