Parishioners rally as Gumbleton leaves

At his last Mass as pastoral administrator of St. Leo Parish in Detroit, Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton told the parish that he was being forced out. "I'm sure," he said, "that it's because of the openness with which I spoke out last January concerning victims of sex abuse in the church."

"We're all suffering the consequences of that, and yet I don't regret doing what I did," he said Jan. 21.

An archdiocesan spokesman, however, said church leaders were simply following existing protocol and that he knew of no auxiliary bishop in the country who remained in charge of a parish after retirement age.

Gumbleton praised St. Leo's parishioners for working to build a parish community. "My hope and my prayer today is ... that you will make it clear that you understand that you are the body of Christ and that you are carrying out his work and that you will commit yourselves to continue this ... even as I leave you."

Last year in Columbus, Ohio, Gumbleton testified in support of a bill that would have created a one-year "look back" period for civil cases involving sexual abuse of a minor by extending a statute of limitations from two years past a victim's 18th birthday to 20 years. During that testimony, Gumbleton revealed that when he was a high school seminarian in the 1940s, he had been sexually abused by a priest on the seminary faculty.

Gumbleton said that was the first time he had talked about the abuse.

The bill Gumbleton supported was opposed by the bishops of Ohio. Bishops in other states--including Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York--were opposing similar bills in local legislatures.

After his revelation, Gumbleton called the church to greater accountability over the sex abuse scandal. In a homily at St. Leo last year, he called the abuse scandal a terrible evil within the church.

He said he had been overwhelmed by the number of people who contacted him, many of them survivors of sexual violence from within the church. "Surely that is a shattered moral order," he said, "especially when it happens within the community of disciples of Jesus and is perpetrated by those who are to be the leaders in that community."

Gumbleton has been active in movements against war, militarism and nuclear weapons going back to the Vietnam era. He helped write the U.S. bishops' pastoral letter on peace and nuclear weapons in the 1980s and served as president of Catholic peace group Pax Christi USA from 1972 to 1991. He has made numerous trips to conflict areas around the world, including multiple trips to Iraq and Haiti.

He has been an outspoken advocate for women serving in the church and for greater openness to gays and lesbians.

Gumbleton contributes a weekly feature, "The Peace Pulpit," to this paper's Web site, NCRcafe.org.

Gumbleton was informed Dec. 17 that he would be replaced as pastor of St. Leo. Detroit archdiocesan spokesman Ned McGrath said Gumbleton and Detroit's Cardinal Adam Maida agreed in early January that Jan. 21 would be the bishop's last day at St. Leo and that was confirmed in a letter hand delivered to Gumbleton Jan. 17.

His replacement was named in an open letter to the parish from Maida dated Jan. 21. Auxiliary Bishop John Quinn delivered copies of the letter and met with St. Leo's pastoral council for two hours Jan. 20. Gumbleton was not in attendance because of a prior engagement.

The letter said Fr. Gerard Battersby would be the new pastoral administrator effective Jan. 22. Battersby, ordained in 1998, has served as pastor of St. Christopher Parish in Detroit and was recently named director of formation at the archdiocese's Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He will continue with that assignment.

Earlier, it was reported that a Jesuit priest, pastor of a nearby parish, would be assigned as pastoral administrator of St. Leo. However, the parish learned Jan. 18 that the Jesuits would not take over St. Leo.

Gumbleton, 77, has served at St. Leo since 1983. At Mass Jan. 22, he repeated that he was being forced out of the parish. "It's certainly not my will. I did not choose to leave St. Leo's," he said. He noted that some of his classmates continue to serve as pastoral administrators in the archdiocese as do other priests even older than he. He said that he was surprised by the Jan. 21 letter from Maida,

McGrath told NCR he didn't know why Gumbleton would say the letter surprised him. McGrath also insisted that Gumbleton was not being forced out. Those who argue for Gumbleton's "staying on as parish administrator totally ignore the protocol that is involved with bishops," he said.

All bishops must resign at age 75, and when the Vatican accepts that resignation, the bishop relinquishes all pastoral responsibilities, he explained.

"In the Vatican's response to [the resignation letter of] Bishop Gumbleton, he was told--and the cardinal was advised--that 'in keeping with his resignation, he was to give up any pastoral office such as a pastor of a parish.' That's not canon law," McGrath said, "but it is what was communicated to Bishop Gumbleton last year by the Congregation for Bishops."