NEW ORLEANS — When Bishop Gregory Aymond left his native New Orleans to become bishop of Austin, Texas, nine years ago, he was a relatively new bishop without experience at the head of a regional church.

But, as Aymond frequently told Texas friends in a series of farewells in recent weeks, Austin taught him how to be a bishop.

The bishop that Austin now sends back to New Orleans is described as a builder and quiet pragmatist who prefers to promote Catholic values without the public confrontations some colleagues willingly accept.

In Austin, observers say, Aymond reorganized an explosively growing diocese, significantly increased the number of new priests and managed doctrinal or cultural challenges to the church from both the left and the right.

On public matters, observers say, he speaks for himself. He tries to stay tuned to details, as well as the big picture. He set up an advisory board of lay Catholics to escape the inner circle he said threatens to smother every bishop with uncritical approval.

“You know the joke,” he said in an interview before his installation as New Orleans’ 14th archbishop on Thursday (Aug. 20). “There are two things every bishop can count on — never missing a meal, and never hearing the truth.”

Politically, while he says abortion and other life issues like euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research are fundamental, during the last election cycle he urged Austin voters also to be mindful of candidates’ approach to other social issues, like the death penalty, racism and poverty.

“We’re lucky to have had him,” said the Rev. Louis Brusatti, dean of the school of humanities at St. Edward’s University in Austin. “He’s moderate; he’s consensual; he’s low-key. He’s not an ideologue. We could’ve done a lot worse.”

Aymond now faces enormous challenges in New Orleans. Still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, the archdiocese is smaller, poorer and more troubled than the one he leaves behind in Austin.

In his installation homily, Aymond, 59, did not mention Katrina. Rather, he called the church to continuing faithfulness to God. He said God would respond, using variations of his own episcopal motto: “God is faithful.”

“God has been faithful to us for more than 200 years,” Aymond told the crowd of about 1,000 invited guests. “He has acted in our history, and he will continue to do so.”

In the coming weeks, unhappy Catholics are likely to ask Aymond to revisit decisions by his predecessor, Archbishop Alfred Hughes, to shutter their beloved churches in a post-Katrina reorganization that closed nearly three dozen parishes.

Aymond said he is willing to do whatever he can to heal those wounds — but added that he was not inclined to reverse Hughes.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to re-look at that, because it’s just not a parish or two — it’s what, 34?”

Aymond confessed that his focus on managing Austin has left him largely uninformed on the details of the Catholic Church’s post-Katrina struggle. Yet he has an advantage: He already knows the city, its rhythms and traditions.

Aymond grew up the eldest of three children in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood, surrounded by cousins. He went straight from high school into seminary. Ordained in 1975, he taught at his alma mater, Notre Dame Seminary, then ran it as rector for 14 years. He became a bishop in 1997.

Except for the past nine years, Aymond has lived his entire life in New Orleans. He already knows most of the priests of the archdiocese — many of whom he trained.

In Austin, Aymond managed a regional church stressed by explosive growth. With more than 450,000 Catholics — compared with about 380,000 in New Orleans — the Austin diocese has doubled in the past 20 years. Church planners expect it to double again over the next 20.

“Austin has the feel of a young technology company,” said Scott Whitaker, the diocese’s director of development. “People are coming here faster than we can keep up.”

Early in his tenure, Aymond reorganized the diocese, and more recently completed a second strategic plan to improve spiritual life in its 125 parishes. In 2006, Aymond launched the diocese’s first-ever capital campaign, asking parishioners for $45 million; they gave him $84 million in pledges.

About $5 million of that is earmarked to finance the education of new seminarians. Aymond said Austin currently has 46 men studying for the priesthood, the most in Austin’s history; New Orleans has eight.

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Aymond says he learned valuable lessons from a painful incident that continues to overshadow his career. In 1998 he allowed a Catholic elementary school teacher, Brian Matherne, to remain on the job despite accusations from a parent that Matherne had molested his son years earlier.

Acting on lawyers’ advice, the archdiocese allowed Matherne to stay on the job because the young man refused to give first-hand testimony. A year later,Matherne was arrested and convicted of abusing many children — some after the church had been warned. He is now in prison.

“I learned from that,” said Aymond, who later led the U.S. bishops’ panel on preventing clergy abuse. “We all learned: When the allegation comes in, act as soon as possible. Even if it doesn’t fit into the legal mode — act.”

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In Austin, Aymond moved to protect the interests of the church as he saw them. In 2007, he ordered Catholic school libraries to remove copies of Philip Pullman’s fantasy, “The Golden Compass,” because of its anti-religion themes.

At the same time, he also effectively banned from a local Catholic radio station Mother Angelica, a conservative Alabama nun who founded the EWTN broadcasting network, because Aymond thought her commentary sounded “angry” and “judgmental.”

Earlier this summer, he was among 80 or so Catholic bishops who publicly protested the University of Notre Dame’s decision to award an honorary degree to President Obama, who favors abortion rights.

Yet Austin observers say that was rather atypical for Aymond, who did not usually go out of his way to confront distant issues — and who acknowledged he usually finds it more effective to quietly engage people over differences.

“I believe I have a responsibility as a bishop and a teacher to stand for the truth,” Aymond said. “I also have an obligation to do it with respect and to respect the people I disagree with. And not to embarrass them more than the situation calls for.”

(Bruce Nolan writes for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.)