Bishop’s friends recall bigger-than-life intellect, compassion

He was the right man at the right time for the job.”

Father Matthew Flatley

No one who knew Bishop John R. Gaydos will forget his warmth or his smile.

Nor the sheer firepower of his intellect.

“In some ways, he was bigger than life,” said Sister Kathleen Wegman of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who served as diocesan chancellor through 10 of Bishop Gaydos’s 19 years as leader of the Jefferson City diocese.

“He was a man who had a deep love of God and the Church,” Sr. Kathleen stated. “He was passionate about leading out of a Gospel vision.”

She said Bishop Gaydos heard and authentically responded to the cries of people in need.

“On many occasions, he’d come back from a Conformation and say, ‘Sister, I’m concerned about the hidden rural poor that we don’t even know are there,’” she recalled.

That concern led to, among many other things, the establishment of Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri.

Bishop Gaydos garnered inspiration from the challenges and rigors of holding together a geographically vast diocese.

“He enjoyed heading out on the road and meeting people,” said Sr. Kathleen. “In many ways, he was energized by it.”

Rites and responsibilities

Bishop Gaydos possessed an incredible sense of humor and a devastatingly quick wit.

“Once you got to know him, you’d see that he was very funny and a great storyteller,” said Father Joseph Corel, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish of Pettis County, who served as vicar general under Bishop Gaydos from 2015-17. “But he learned to be on guard in big settings, because he didn’t want to say something that would come off as offensive.”

As leader of the diocese, Bishop Gaydos was committed to being truthful and faithful to the teachings of the Church.

“He would regularly tell us priests that the laypeople deserve the Roman Missal and the rite books when it comes to celebrating the Sacraments,” said Fr. Corel. “He’d tell us that people have a right to the ways in which the rites are properly celebrated according to the Church.”

Fr. Corel saw Bishop Gaydos as “a priest’s priest.”

“He really loved priests and being around priests,” Fr. Corel recalled. “He trusted us to lead our parishes the way they needed to be led. He practiced the principle of subsidiarity.”

In many ways, Bishop Gaydos saw himself as a missionary to the poor and marginalized.

“He showed that by the way he handled the abuse crisis under his tenure and beginning Catholic Charities for our diocese,” said Fr. Corel.

“Generous and forgiving”

Deacon Dan Joyce described Bishop Gaydos as “incredibly smart,” and as having a “devastating wit.”

“He was a leader who cared about people — the ones he served as bishop and the people he worked with to meet the needs of the diocese,” said Deacon Joyce, who served as communication director for eight years under Bishop Gaydos and as his personal secretary since 2021.

“Bishop had a special ability to communicate and connect with people one-on-one,” Deacon Joyce stated.

He noted that the stress of leading a diocese of over 100 parishes and missions in 38 counties could be daunting.

“As a result, Bishop Gaydos, just like anyone else, could be a bit impatient on occasion,” the deacon noted. “But, people who knew him well would tell you that beneath a sometimes gruff demeanor was a warm-hearted, generous and forgiving nature.”

Deacon Joyce worked with Bishop Gaydos at many Confirmations in parishes around the diocese, and they often were whirlwind affairs.

“Sometimes I expressed concerns about how things might go before he’d embark on a long and, frequently for him, tiring Liturgy,” Deacon Joyce recalled.

Bishop Gaydos would always smile back and say, “Don’t worry, we always get through these things.”

“In effect: ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff,’” Deacon Joyce surmised. “And for the most part, I think that’s the way he looked at life in his later years.”

“The right man”

Father Matthew Flatley was fond of addressing Bishop Gaydos privately as “Father.”

“Because I sense that was the great love of his life, to be a priest,” said Fr. Flatley, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Jefferson City.

“He had a great, great love for the Church and for the Catholic tradition,” said Fr. Flatley.

He commented on Bishop Gaydos’s “extraordinary mind and exceptional grasp of history.”

“He taught me a lot,” the priest stated. “Whenever he spoke about anything historical, I listened very carefully.”

Once while Bishop Gaydos was visiting Fr. Flatley while he was a seminarian at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wisconsin, they walked across a bridge that connects the library to the rest of the campus.

“It was rather long — 60 or 70 feet — and there were portraits on either side, paintings of Church history,” Fr. Flatley recalled. “The first time Bishop Gaydos walked across that bridge, he glanced at each image and knew exactly what each one was.”

Such a breadth of knowledge of history of the Church and the world served him so well as bishop, “especially as our diocese was coming of age,” the priest stated.

“He was the right man at the right time for the job,” he said.

Bishop Gaydos ordained Fr. Flatley to the Priesthood on Dec. 15, 2012.

“It was the day after the horror of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,” Fr. Flatley recalled. “Bishop Gaydos acknowledged the tragedy and said there was nothing he would rather be doing that day, than to ordain a new priest for ministry in the Catholic Church.”

Fr. Flatley had followed a circuitous path to Priesthood. When Bishop Gaydos anointed his hands with Sacred Chrism at the ordination, he said very quietly, “It’s about time, Matthew.”

Bishop Gaydos was fond of saying: “We live in a culture that allows everything and forgives very little.”

He was convinced that only the Good News of Jesus Christ could free society from those shackles.

“He had terrific insight,” said Fr. Flatley. “I think he was really a fine man, a fine priest and a fine bishop.”

“Wonderful things”

“He was quite the character!” recalled Father Richard Stoltz, a retired priest of the St. Louis archdiocese, who was a friend of Bishop Gaydos for many years.

The future bishop was serving as secretary to the archbishop and later as vicar for seminarians while Fr. Stoltz was rector of the St. Louis Prep Seminary-North high school.

“He was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known,” said Fr. Stoltz. “He had an unbelievable veracity for reading and possibly a photographic memory. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of almost everything.”

That helped make Bishop Gaydos an incredible conversationalist.

“He could carry on a conversation with the pope or with the person who was cleaning his office,” said Fr. Stoltz. “He would talk to anybody and listen to anybody, for good or for ill. Most of the time, it ended up for good.”

At heart, Fr. Stoltz asserted, Bishop Gaydos was “a simple boy from South St. Louis who gave his life to the Church ... and wonderful things happened.”

Bishop Gaydos was studying in Rome near the end of the Second Vatican Council, while the Eternal City’s population was swelled by cardinals, priests, “periti” (theology experts), inquisitive reporters and commentators.

As such, he had a hand in the ongoing implementation of the Council’s reforms at the parish level and later at the diocesan level.

“He was very much a Vatican II bishop,” said Fr. Stoltz. “He loved the Liturgy. He was a great preacher. He had a great insight into the Word of God and communicated it very well, and poetically.”

Fr. Stoltz called to mind a phrase from Tennessee Williams: “Nothing human disgusts me unless it’s unkind.”

“That’s how Bishop Gaydos would relate to people,” he said. “He was very compassionate. He always let people know where he stood, but it was never in any kind of ideological way.”

Bishop Gaydos loved the Church.

“He was definitely a Church person,” said Fr. Stoltz. “He was very loyal to the Church in every aspect of his life.”

He was like St. Louis Archbishop John L. May (+1980-92) in that “when he put you in charge, you were in charge. He was not going to interfere.”

“If it went wonderful, you’d get the credit,” said Fr. Stoltz. “If it went south, he’d hold you accountable. He treated the people he worked with as adults who knew what they were doing. That’s a great kind of person to work for.”

Bishop Gaydos loved Central and Northeastern Missouri and considered being a bishop here an honor and a privilege.

“I’m convinced that he never thought he’d be a bishop,” said Fr. Stoltz. “But when he got to be one, he was grateful that it got to be there.”

Treasures in heaven

Once while the diocese was gearing up for its annual Catholic Stewardship Appeal, Bishop Gaydos directed Deacon Joyce to review Matthew 6:19-21.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.”

“This Scripture passage was a favorite of his,” said Deacon Joyce, “and so I think he would want us to ask God to guide us in ways to store up treasures in heaven, as I’m sure he did.”

Sr. Kathleen said gratitude is an appropriate tribute to Bishop Gaydos.

“Be grateful for the gift that he was,” she suggested. “We can honor him by being open and being faithful to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.”

Fr. Stoltz asks people to give thanks on Bishop Gaydos’s behalf for a great life and great opportunities to minister.

He suggested honoring Bishop Gaydos’s memory by “holding the middle, being open to people in the best sense of the term, and not being so judgmental or writing people off.”

Fr. Corel noted that Bishop Gaydos often ended a tribute to someone, living or deceased, with a quote from Philippians 1:6: “May God, who has begun this good work in you, bring it to fulfillment. Amen. Alleluia.”

“May that be what he now hears God say: ‘Now, enter into your Father’s kingdom.’”