Greensburg bishop to lead Cleveland Diocese
Pope Francis on Thursday named Greensburg Bishop Edward C. Malesic to lead the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, where he will assume leadership of a Catholic population that is five times the size of the one he’s led since 2015.
The announcement comes five years to the month after Bishop Malesic, 59, was installed as bishop of Greensburg. He will take over the Cleveland post from Bishop Nelson Perez, who was installed as the archbishop of Philadelphia in February.
“I am sad to be leaving the Diocese of Greensburg,” Bishop Malesic said Thursday morning at a news conference livestreamed from Cleveland. He said he was shocked to receive word of his appointment to Cleveland from the pope’s U.S. representative, just as he was five years earlier when he was appointed to Greensburg, where he said he expected to live out his days and be buried.
“This will not be an easy transition for me, but once again I believe God is asking me to move to a new place,” Bishop Malesic said. Directing some of his remarks to his flock in Greensburg, he said: “Over these last five years, you’ve helped me learn how to be a bishop.”
Bishop Malesic is scheduled to be installed as Cleveland Diocese’s 12th bishop on Sept. 14 at St. John the Evangelist Cathedral.
Bishop Malesic’s Greensburg tenure was marked most dramatically by a Pennsylvania statewide grand jury investigation into sexual abuse by clergy — an investigation his diocese first tried to halt before responding with listening sessions, a compensation program and various reforms.
He also led a diocesewide series of services, educational workshops and other responses to the opioid epidemic that ravaged the region. And he took steps to expand evangelization, Catholic education and humanitarian responses to the COVID19 pandemic.
At the news conference, he said: “The vision I have is simple, to communicate the gospel to people. The big question is: How do you do that?” He acknowledged significant numbers of young people in particular who have left the church. He said it’s important to listen to them.
“Sometimes people say, ‘The church is mean, the church is corrupt.’ That’s just not the church I belong to. So I need to tell them what the church is,” he said. When people tell him
they’ve left the church, he replies, “We’re lesser for that. We’re made lesser because you’re not here with us.”
Bishop Malesic was appointed in April 2015 to lead the Greensburg Diocese and was formally installed in July of that year. The diocese includes Armstrong, Indiana, Fayette and Westmoreland counties, with about 134,000 Catholics, according to the Official Catholic Directory.
A much larger diocese, Cleveland’s includes eight counties in northcentral Ohio, a region that is home to nearly 683,000 Catholics, according to diocesan officials.
Bishop Malesic, a native of Harrisburg, was ordained a priest in 1987 and served in various pastoral assignments and campus ministries in the Diocese of Harrisburg. He was appointed diocesan judicial vicar in 2006 before being named as Greensburg’s bishop.
During his time in Greensburg, he was known for bringing his pastoral experience to his role and embodying Pope Francis’ call for “shepherds with the smell of sheep,” residing in a former rectory and having the diocese sell its bishop’s residence.
Monsignor Michael J. Begolly, pastor of three New Kensington parishes, said that Bishop Malesic made it a point to visit parish festivals and fish fries, and he would be sure to visit the kitchen to thank the volunteers. During the bishop’s sessions on the opioid crisis, “he wanted to hear what people said, wanted to know their pain, hear their experience [and learn] how the church needs to respond,” Monsignor Begolly said.
Retired Archabbot Douglas Nowicki of St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe agreed.
“He’s an outstanding listener,” he said. “He doesn’t come in with a set of solutions in advance. He’s able to come up with creative solutions as a result of being a good listener.”
He added that the bishop “has a tremendous sense of humor,” valuable “particular in this age when things are so uncertain.”
The most contentious issue that Bishop Malesic faced in Greensburg surrounded a statewide grand jury report into sexual abuse by priests in Greensburg’s and five other Pennsylvania dioceses. Under Bishop Malesic’s leadership in 2017, the Greensburg diocese joined the Harrisburg diocese in seeking to discharge the grand jury in 2017, long before it completed its investigation, arguing that the basis for a statewide grand jury was unfounded and that such matters should be turned over to local prosecutors. The presiding judge for the grand jury denied the appeal.
With the report’s release in 2018, Bishop Malesic held a series of sessions throughout the diocese, listening to angered and anguished comments of parishioners; released the names of credibly accused priests; and agreed to $4.4 million in compensation to victims. Bishop Malesic also removed the name of a predecessor, the late Bishop William Connare, from the dioceses’s conference and retreat center after the grand jury revealed that bishop had kept abusive priests in ministry. It’s now called Christ Our Shepherd Center.
He said he believes the diocese has strong, transparent policies now on preventing abuse and removing abusers from ministry, but he acknowledged the church has a longstanding “crisis of credibility” given its past record.
In 2017, Bishop Malesic launched a response to the opioid crisis after he continually heard reports from pastors doing funerals for overdose victims and receiving requests for prayer from loved ones struggling with addictions. He held educational sessions and solemn prayer services. “The church can teach and the church can pray,” he said.
Most recently, Bishop Malesic has led the diocese amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including the temporary shift to online worship and the expanded offerings of food and other aid to the needy.
Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik called Bishop Malesic’s departure a loss for southwestern Pennsylvania, but a “blessing” for the Cleveland Diocese.
“Bishop Malesic has been an exceptional pastor to the faithful ...” Bishop Zubik said in a statement. He “has shown what it means to be a servant leader in the Diocese of Greensburg, giving wise and gentle guidance in difficult times and especially in his outreach to people devastated by opioid addiction.”
On a lighter note at the news conference, Bishop Malesic alluded to crossing over from Steeler Country to the home of NFL divisional rival Browns: “Can I at least bring one Terrible Towel with me, for old time’s sake?”