The Rev. Peter Laird, St. Thomas graduate and faculty member at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, will be the new vicar general and moderator of the curia, the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul announced Tuesday.

Laird will succeed Bishop-elect Paul Sirba when he becomes the bishop of Diocese of Duluth. Both men start their new jobs in December.

Laird graduated from St. Thomas in 1988 and has worked for the past nine years as vice rector and director of seminarians at the St. Paul Seminary. He also is an assistant professor of moral theology.