Walsh reflects on one year anniversary of leading, learning in Catholic community

GAYLORD — Seventy-three days after Pope Francis appointed Jeffrey Walsh, who was a priest of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, as bishop of the Diocese of Gaylord, the Scranton native was ordained and installed in an invitation-only ceremony at St. Mary Cathedral on March 4, 2022.

Walsh agreed to answer questions from the Herald Times on his first-year anniversary of leading the region's Catholic community in becoming the sixth bishop of the Gaylord diocese.

Q: What are your top two impressions of the people of Northern Michigan one year later?

Walsh: They are very hard working. The experience that I had in Pennsylvania confirms this as well: farmers are the hardest working people. We have a large rural population in the Diocese of Gaylord and I have come to admire just how hard working the people are.

The second impression is they are great outdoor enthusiasts. You can't go anywhere where you don't see someone carrying a canoe, bikes, snowmobiles, boats and campers — something that can be used in the outdoors. I appreciate how much of a mecca this is for people who enjoy the outdoors.

Q: As you engaged with the Catholic community, what are their top concerns?

Walsh: We have been engaged in a process called the Synod on Synodality. This is something that Pope Francis asked the church to do and we have implemented this on the local level as well. The idea is to listen to the people and keep our finger on the pulse of what is happening. We have a report that was issued from our diocese and it was given to the region, then to the national and eventually to the Vatican.

We see common themes emerging — basically people want to be heard and have the opportunity to express their concerns on a lot of the hot-button issues in the secular area. For example what is the best way to provide for our families. How do we best move forward as a church and what programs can we provide to meet the needs of the people?

We also need to look at how we allocate our resources to make sure we provide for all of the different aspects of people's lives from a crisis pregnancy center to elderly care. What ministries are are we organizing to meet those needs? Those are the common themes in the Synod.

Also we have focused a lot on a Eucharistic revival and trying to help our people come to a greater conviction about the presence of Jesus in the Sacraments. That is something the church has always maintained and teaches. But sometimes we get disconnected or maybe fail to realize the full impact of that.

Locally we have the boarding school issue when the government issued a report based on what was happening in Canada and what affect the boarding schools had in the U.S. We had one in Harbor Springs. So for me as a new bishop I was trying to be attentive to that and how do we respond to the concerns of Native Americans in this diocese.

I had a recent outreach to the tribal leaders and we are going to try and get together in the spring to do some archival sharing about the boarding school.

Also the AG (Attorney General) report on the clergy sex abuse scandal. We don't know all of the contents yet. The first report was issued about the Diocese of Marquette and there are six others that we anticipate that are on the minds of people. We know it has been an ongoing issue and something that has been a heartache for our church for decades. When it comes close to home we are going to (need) a direct way that we respond.

In the meantime we also acknowledge the joyful ways we can bring people together to celebrate all of the important things in people's lives like a baptism, first communion, confirmations, weddings and all of the happy occasions.

Q: Is there a role for the church in hot-button issues like gun control?

Walsh: The Michigan Catholic Conference is set up to do advocacy when it comes to legislation and things connected to politics. They are good at articulating the church's understanding of various issues and they can be the public voice for the church.

Whether it is gun control or issues like what is causing people to resort to violence or the shootings at Michigan State University and Oxford High School, there are issues that can be tied into things that have a moral dimension and I think this where the church should always be trying to educate and inform about what is virtue.

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Q: Should lesbian, gay and transgender people be allowed to participate in church services?

Walsh: God loves everyone and the love God has for us is unconditional. The church expresses that love through everything that she is meant to do as the body of Christ.

The church will always have to recognize our long established conditions that are necessary for our salvation. Our freedoms can be comprised and there are things that would lead us away from communion with him by the choices that we make and the sins that can separate us from the love of God.

So when it comes to should anyone in the LGBT community feel welcome to church, the answer is unequivocally yes they should feel welcome. But the second question should be will they be receiving communion or participating actively in the life of the church?

The answer would depend on if they are adhering to the teachings of the church which is the teachings of Jesus as there is no separation between Jesus and the church. When it comes to issues like the way we express ourselves sexually I think it is important that we recognize for example that adultery is a sin. If someone is in a marriage they are welcome in the church even if they have committed adultery.

But they shouldn't receive communion if they have that sin on their soul. A conversion of the heart is what the Lord is after. It's a sense of modesty, chastity and humility and those virtues aren't easy to come by. But the church tries to help us to live them by making a clear distinction between orientation and an act. Someone's orientation is something a person might struggle with towards any kind of sin.

But the real distinction is whether a person has acted on that orientation toward sin. That's where the church is always encouraging us to turn to the Lord for his merciful help in bringing us into conformity with him. Certainly the welcome is always there to come and celebrate. But be mindful in your conscience of whether you are in communion with God and until that time refrain from active participation and then allow God's grace to transform us.

— Contact Paul Welitzkin at pwelitzkin@gaylordheraldtimes.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Walsh reflects on one year anniversary of leading, learning in Catholic community