Daniel DiNardo

On August 19, 1997, DiNardo was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on the following October 7 from Bishop Lawrence Soens, with Bishops Donald Wuerl and Raymond Burke serving as co-consecrators, in the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.[3] He adopted as his episcopal motto: Ave Crux Spes Unica, taken from the Latin hymn Vexilla Regis and meaning, "Hail, O Cross, Our Only Hope."[8]

He succeeded Soens as the sixth Bishop of Sioux City upon the latter's retirement on November 28, 1998.

DiNardo was later named Coadjutor Bishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, on January 16, 2004. The diocese was elevated to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese by John Paul II on the following December 29, and he thus became Coadjutor Archbishop. When Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Joseph Fiorenza, DiNardo succeeded him as the second Archbishop of Galveston-Houston on February 28, 2006. He received the pallium, a vestment worn by metropolitan bishops, from Benedict XVI on June 29 of that year.

He once commented, "There is a certain sense of the church in Texas...It is more laid-back, informal, which I think is good."[4]

He was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Eusebio in the consistory of November 24, 2007. In 2008 he was awarded Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.[9]

On January 17, 2009, he was made a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.[10] In March 2009, he described the choice of President Barack Obama to be the commencement speaker for the University of Notre Dame's graduation ceremony as "very disappointing," given Obama's support for legal abortion.[11]

Outside of the Archdiocese, Cardinal DiNardo serves on the Board of the National Catholic Partnership for Persons with Disabilities, a position to which he brings a certain empathy, contending as he does with significant hearing loss in both ears. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Catholic University of America, is an advisor to the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People and is part of the Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is the Grand Prior of the South West Lieutenancy of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, a Papal order of Knighthood, in which he holds the rank of Knight Grand Cross.

He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that selected Pope Francis.

On November 14, 2014, at the fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal DiNardo was elected as a delegate to the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family, pending Vatican approval.[12]

On November 20, 2018, it was reported that Cardinal DiNardo has kept two priests accused of past abuse in current active ministry. John LaBonte accused the Rev. John Keller of sexually molesting him at age 16. The abuse allegedly included attempting to get him drunk and fondling him in bed. LaBonte first reported his allegation to the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in 2002. The archdiocese said in a reply that Keller admitted to "holding [LaBonte] in a manner inappropriate for a priest" and promised to admit him to therapy. However, it also stated that Keller "[denied] any sexual intent" and claimed that it "could not conclude that" what happened "constituted sexual abuse." Keller remained in ministry. Furthermore, in a sworn affidavit, an alleged victim accused Rev. Terence Brinkman of sexual misconduct. The events allegedly took place during the 1970s. The archdiocese stated that the person making the accusation "provided a physical description that does not match Father Brinkman." DiNardo promised to release a list of credibly accused priests in January 2019. In November, CBS News spoke to 20 people who claim to have knowledge of incidents of misconduct, and none of them had been contacted.[13]

On January 30, 2019, DiNardo released a list of names of 40 priests from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston who have faced allegations of sexual misconduct deemed credible by archdiocese officials in the past 70 years.[14] One of them was Keller. However, he was criticized for allowing Keller to offer Mass publicly at his parish the morning after the list was released.[15]