Bishop Michael Pham, recently appointed by Pope Leo as the first U.S. bishop under his papacy,

has emerged as a new voice of the Catholic Church. Through his own story of survival as a child refugee from Vietnam,

he stepped into the national spotlight, showing up at immigration courts to support families caught in legal limbo in the current crackdown.

Amman Nawaz spoke with him earlier this month and provides a closer look at how he's turning

his ministry into a mission.

It's a role Bishop Michael Pham says he never expected to fill.

All I wanted it to be was to be a good priest to serve God's people, to serve the people in our society today.

And that's what I wanted the most is to be part of people's lives and it's so fun and joyful.

Now leading the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego and its 1.3 million members,

FAM was the very first bishop in the U.S. appointed by Pope Leo.

I felt absurd.

But his path to this post was an unlikely one.

Fleeing communism in 1970s Vietnam, he and his siblings landed in a Malaysian refugee camp

when he was just 13.

I'm there in Malaysia, walking along the beach, thinking, this is it.

This is the way I'm going to live without my parents around.

That was an emotional for me to realize that.

Years later, through an American refugee charity,

the family was reunited in

1981 during winter in Minnesota. I went out of the house, didn't realize it was a cold winter.

I had my short on and my t-shirt, and with a bicycle outside, I went out, I hop it on, and I was riding it within five minutes, it was so cold.

I said, that's it.

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