Detroit — The path to the No. 2 position at an important Vatican dicastery began in Holy Redeemer Parish in southwest Detroit.

The Vatican announced Aug. 2 that Pope Benedict XVI has named Fr. Joseph W. Tobin, CSsR — a son of the parish and later its pastor — to be secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

The appointment entails Fr. Tobin’s elevation to archbishop, but details of his ordination ceremony have yet to be worked out.

Archbishop-designate Tobin said Monday the appointment came as a surprise.

“It was not something that was on my radar screen,” he said in a telephone interview from his mother’s home in Stoney Point, Ontario, about 35 miles east of Windsor.

But he expressed enthusiasm about the opportunity: “I believe in the consecrated life, and anything I can do in the Church to see that it will continue and prosper, I’m willing to do that.”

Of his local roots, he said, “If it is true that we never forget our first love, I carry a big part of southwest Detroit in my heart.”

Having grown up in a duplex at Campbell and Christiancy, just a block from the church, and after going to school there, he said he was happy to return to Holy Redeemer as its pastor in August 1984, “although some parishioners probably wondered how on earth ‘that ruffian’ was now up there celebrating the Eucharist.”

Fr. Tobin became pastor of the parish in July 1990, and “the experience of trying to build a multi-cultural community left its mark on me.”

“We had a clear sense of mission at Holy Redeemer, and the opportunity to share that sense of mission, working with my fellow Redemptorists and the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” he said.

Although he was to leave Holy Redeemer to take an assignment in Chicago, and then go on to national and international positions, the archbishop-designate said he has kept up with news of the parish and of Detroit, “of both its struggles and its victories.”

Fr. Tobin said he misses Tiger Stadium and being able to just walk across the street to Duly’s Coney Island (across Vernor and Junction from the church) at all hours of the day or night. He still manages to get together with old friends for a game of hockey on his frequent trips back.

He said he will return to Oxford University in England to wrap up some matters connected with the sabbatical he was enjoying when news of his appointment reached him. Then, he will head to Rome, where he will make arrangements for his archiepiscopal ordination — probably in October.

His mother, Marie Terese Tobin, expressed pride in her son’s appointment.

“He’s been a wonderful, wonderful son for 58 years. All of my children are wonderful,” she said.

“My role is to love them, which is very, very easy, and to pray for them. They had the most wonderful father, and he’s looking after them from heaven,” she said, referring to her late husband, Joseph, who died in 1977.

Now 87, she said she hopes to attend his ordination ceremony.

His sister, Margaret Tobin, a member of St. Paul on the Lake Parish in Grosse Pointe Farms, said she and Fr. Tobin’s other siblings are all “very proud of him and very excited” about the appointment.

“I am confident, as his little sister, that he’s going to do a wonderful job,” she said.

Nevertheless, Margaret Tobin said she never envisioned her brother in an administrative role. “He’s always been wonderful with people and loved being a parish priest, but I always knew he would do a fabulous job at whatever he did,” she added.

Maria Iglesias, a long-time member of Holy Redeemer Parish, said she was excited and happy to hear of Fr. Tobin’s appointment. “I adored that priest. He gave the best homilies; they hit your heart, and you would wish he would never finish,” she said.

Iglesias called Fr. Tobin “a very humble person with a lot of humanity for the poor, and he loved the Hispanic people at Holy Redeemer.”

“I wish I could be there myself when he is ordained an archbishop,” she added.

Fellow parishioner Maria Socorro Hernandez, said through an interpreter, “When Fr. Tobin was here at Holy Redeemer, he was a very good pastor and liked the Hispanic people. There were no differences between anyone.”

She said it was Fr. Tobin who started having Spanish-speaking lectors and eucharistic ministers, started celebrating some Masses in Spanish, and made other functions, such as parish meetings, bilingual.

Hernandez said Fr. Tobin was very devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe and celebrated her feast day (Dec. 12) “with much solemnity.”

“He knew the people by their name and made us feel that we were all welcomed in the church.  He liked that we helped him in everything.  He helped many people in need, and was loved very much by the parish,” she added.

Msgr. Donald Hanchon, Holy Redeemer’s current pastor, said he believes Fr. Tobin’s appointment will prove to be “a great blessing for the religious of the world.”

“You know, the Redemptorists’ motto is ‘With Him, there is abundant redemption,’ and I think Joe Tobin exemplifies the Redemptorist spirit,” Msgr. Hanchon added.

Fr. Tobin, 58, is a former superior general of the Redemptorists and a member of their Denver Province.

Fr. Michael Brehl, successor to Fr. Tobin as superior general, said, “The Redemptorists are very proud of Fr. Joseph Tobin as he accepts this new mission. He served our congregation and the Church very well as our superior general. This appointment will bring his gifts and experience to the service of all religious priests, brothers and sisters. His love for God and the people of God, and especially his love for the poor and abandoned, will be the heart of this ministry.”

Born in Detroit in 1952, Fr. Tobin was the oldest of 13 children. He was baptized at and attended Holy Redeemer Church, which was then a Redemptorist parish.

He entered the Redemptorist minor seminary in the autumn of 1966, and the order’s novitiate in July 1972, making his first profession Aug. 5, 1973.

He completed his philosophy studies at Holy Redeemer College, Waterford, Wis., and his theology studies at Mount. St. Alphonsus Seminary in Esopus, N.Y., earning master’s degrees in religious education and divinity.

Fr. Tobin made his perpetual profession Aug. 21, 1976 and was ordained to the priesthood June 1, 1978.

From 1979 to 1990 he served first as associate pastor and then later as pastor of Holy Redeemer Parish. He also served the Archbishop of Detroit as an episcopal vicar and judge in the archdiocesan Metropolitan Tribunal.

In 1990 he was named pastor of St. Alphonsus Parish in Chicago. Both in Detroit and Chicago, his assignments included extensive ministry to Spanish-speaking people.

In 1991 he was elected by the Redemptorists’ 21st general chapter in Itaici, Brazil to serve as a general consultor to then-Superior General Fr. Juan Manual Lasso de la Vega, and transferred to Rome.

In 1997 the order’s 22nd general chapter meeting in West End, N.J., elected Fr. Tobin superior general and re-elected by the 23rd general chapter in 2003 held in Rome. During his service as superior general, the Union of Superiors General  twice elected Fr. Tobin as its vice president. He was also selected to be a member of five synods of bishops, in 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2008.

Fr. Tobin speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.

This June the Holy Father asked Fr. Tobin to be one of two apostolic visitors for religious orders of men in Ireland to assist the Irish Church in the wake of the sex abuse scandals.

In his new position as secretary for the Congregation for Religious, Fr. Tobin succeeds Archbishop Gianfranco Agostino Gardin, OFM Conv., who was named bishop of Trevino, Italy in December 2009.

The current prefect of the Congregation for Religious is Cardinal Frank Rodé, CM, of Slovenia.

The congregation — officially the Congregatio pro Institutis Vitae Consecratae et Societatibus Vitae Apostolicae — is the congregation of the Roman Curia responsible for everything that concerns institutes of consecrated life (orders and religious congregations, both of men and of women, secular institutes) and societies of apòstolic life regarding their government, discipline, studies, goods, rights and privileges.

It had its origins in the Sacred Congregation for Consultations about Regulars established by Pope Sixtus V on May 27, 1586. Its name was changed in 1908 to the Congregation of the Affairs of Religious; changed again to the Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in 1967 by Pope Paul VI; and finally to its current name by Pope John Paul II in 1988.

— Patricia Maldonado, archdiocesan director of Digital Media, and Catholic News Service contributed to this report.