Former Archbishop Peter Leo Gerety, world's oldest Catholic bishop, dead at 104

Archbishop Peter Leo Gerety, considered one of the most progressive Roman Catholic bishops in America during his 12-year tenure as head of the Archdiocese of Newark, died Tuesday, the archdiocese confirmed. He was 104.

Gerety, the world's oldest Catholic bishop, marked his 77th year as a priest and 50th year as a bishop in June. He spent his final years at St. Joseph's Home for the Elderly, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Totowa.

"He made an enormous contribution because of his love of the poor and his deep interest in African American Catholics," said retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who succeeded Gerety as Newark's archbishop in 1986. "He took the message of the Second Vatican Council as a call to action and devoted himself to trying to follow its directives in the churches that he led."

Archbishop Gerety, who was bishop of Portland, Maine, before coming to Newark in 1974, gained headlines when he conducted mass general absolutions to bring lapsed Catholics back to the church, formed a Black Apostolate, supported equal rights legislation for women and paid off tens of millions of dollars in diocesan debt.

He marched for civil rights in Selma, Ala., protested the Vietnam War, brought Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity to Newark and launched RENEW, an adult small-group spiritual revival movement that has spread worldwide.

"Today this local church of Newark mourns a remarkable churchman whose love for the people of God was always strong and ever-growing," Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said in a statement Wednesday.

"He served as shepherd of this great archdiocese during a time of spiritual reawakening in the years after the Second Vatican Council, and a time of deep financial difficulties," Myers said. "He very carefully led the church, her people and institutions through those challenges."

Msgr. Francis R. Seymour, the archdiocese's archivist and Gerety's longtime secretary, said the former archbishop died peacefully at 8:20 p.m. Tuesday in the Totowa residence.

In recent weeks, Seymour said, Gerety didn't speak much, but he remained lucid and followed conversation, nodding to show understanding. He called the retired archbishop a humble man who worked fiercely for the betterment of all.

"He brought a whole new spirit to the church, a spirit of inclusion based in part on his deep devotion to social justice," Seymour said.

Born in Connecticut in 1912, the oldest of nine sons of Peter and Charlotte Gerety, both transplanted New Jersey natives, his childhood name was "Bossy Leo," his brother, Edward Gerety, now deceased, told The Star-Ledger in 2005.

It was a family of achievers. Two sons became doctors, two became priests, two became engineers and two became lawyers -- one of whom, Pierce, headed refugee operations for the Eisenhower administration. The youngest Gerety brother died in Germany during World War II.

Leo, as he was called by his family, was uncertain about his own future after graduating high school, where he won scholastic honors and was captain of the high school football team, his brother said.

"He didn't immediately set his course to the church, but worked several jobs. My favorite was when he got hired on border control by the state of Connecticut. It was during a Japanese beetle infestation and his job was to check cars for (alien) bugs," the brother said.

Delaying his religious calling served him later in life, Edward Gerety said: "Unlike many priests who entered the church right out of school, Leo was more worldly, more sophisticated, more confident. Beyond that, he was also brilliant and incredibly wise."

He entered St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, Conn., and was sent to St. Sulpice Seminary in Issy, France. He was ordained at Note Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1939. He spent 27 years as a parish priest, primarily in Connecticut, where he became known, according to church officials, for his dedication to "cultural unity."

In part to serve the immigrant populations in his inner-city parishes, he became fluent in Italian, French and Spanish. In 1942, he started an interracial social and religious center in New Haven, which later became the first African American Roman Catholic parish in Connecticut. It was named after St. Martin de Porres, the patron saint of interracial justice.

Seymour, Gerety's secretary, said the archbishop remained connected to the parish throughout his life, visiting often.

"He always loved to go there, and people remembered him. Their children and grandchildren remembered him," Seymour said. "He always got a very warm reception."

In 1966, Gerety was named bishop of Portland, Maine, embracing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the international convocation meant to modernize the Roman Catholic Church.

Eight years later, in 1974, he was appointed archbishop of Newark, an increasingly multicultural archdiocese serving more than a million Catholics in Essex, Union, Hudson and Bergen counties.

While staunch in his support of traditional Catholic values -- he once wrote President Jimmy Carter chastising him on his pro-abortion stance -- Archbishop Gerety embraced change and championed civil rights.

He encouraged women to take a more active role in the church. In 1981, he issued a pastoral letter that said, "we are compelled to acknowledge that women have been and are still being denied their rightful place in society and in the church, their true talents and gifts left in large part unrecognized."

He approved five -- and personally conducted two -- Mass rites in the archdiocese, giving public penance to an estimated 5,000 New Jersey lapsed Catholics in an effort to bring them back into the church.

Msgr. Franklyn Casale, Gerety's former secretary and vicar general and now president of St. Thomas University in Miami, said the archbishop made the church more accessible, growing the ranks of lay people in all facets of ministry.

"In his mind, he had a great gift, and that was the priesthood, and that made him a strong leader with great energy and vision, and the vision at the time was to get lay people totally involved in the church as it was renewing itself," Casale said.

Gerety was the first Roman Catholic archbishop to insist on living in Newark, rather than a lavish residence then owned by the archdiocese in Llewellyn Park in West Orange. He moved into the rectory next to Sacred Heart Cathedral just seven years after riots devastated the city.

He sold the pricey West Orange property to pay down the massive debt the archdiocese had accumulated. He also sold other property -- but never schools or churches -- to retire a debt that has been estimated as high as $60 million.

One of his more controversial moves was to lend the cathedral for the 1976 installation of Episcopalian Bishop John Spong, because the Episcopal cathedral wasn't big enough to hold the anticipated crowd. The reaction was dramatic, with some Catholics crying heresy.

In his archdiocese biography, church officials call the act "precedent shattering" and a prime example of how, under his leadership, "the cathedral...opened its doors to the world."

Thomas J. Reese, author of "Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church," noted in his 1989 book: "...Some archbishops not only permit initiatives, but actively support people with initiative... (Gerety) found and supported creative people."

Brendon Byrne, who was New Jersey governor when he attended Archbishop Gerety's installation, recalled him as "a good shepherd, in the best sense of the word."

"He always gave you the feeling that he was there to help you," Byrne said. "He was the kind of guy who would understand your problems, not judge them."

Archbishop Gerety retired in 1986 but continued to stay active. In 1989, when the archdiocese celebrated a half century in the priesthood, he was called a "visionary" and a "giant" by fellow priests.

At his 50th anniversary, Archbishop Gerety talked about the changes during those 50 years: "For the better, certainly, was the civil rights revolution, for the worse has been the loosening of the cohesiveness of family life."

He prayed for a new generation of the Catholic clergy to "push forward with ever increasing vigor the imperatives of the Second Vatican Council ... evangelism, liturgy, concern for the poor and the deprived, the elimination of racism."

Archbishop Gerety's eight brothers predeceased him. He is survived by numerous nephews, nieces and their children. Funeral arrangements were pending.

Former staff writer Judy Peet contributed to this report.

Mark Mueller may be reached at mmueller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJMueller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.