UPDATED: Rest in peace, Bishop Emeritus John R. Gaydos, former shepherd of the diocese
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Bishop Emeritus John Raymond Gaydos, 82, who served as the third Bishop of Jefferson City from 1997 to 2017, died peacefully the morning of Saturday, September 6, 2025, at St. Agnes Retirement Home in Kirkwood, Missouri.
He had been a priest for 56 years and a bishop for 28.
The St. Louis native led the Church in central and northeastern Missouri through some of its most vexing challenges in the course of his 20-year tenure.
“Bishop Gaydos served our diocese with a shepherd’s care and an unwavering trust in the Holy Spirit,” said Monsignor Robert A. Kurwicki, diocesan administrator.
“He led us through seasons of challenge and change, always pointing us toward hope and reminding us of God’s boundless mercy,” the monsignor stated.
The wake and visitation was held on Monday, September 15, with a Vigil Service and prayers.
The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Tuesday, September 16, in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, with Metropolitan Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski of St. Louis presiding and Archbishop Emeritus George J. Lucas of Omaha, Nebraska, preaching the homily.
Archbishop Shawn McKnight of Kansas City in Kansas, who succeeded Bishop Gaydos as shepherd of the diocese from 2018 until this past May, along with priests of this diocese and the St. Louis archdiocese, concelebrated, along with other guest priests.
Both ceremonies were open to the public and livestreamed on the Diocese of Jefferson City’s Facebook page.
Burial was in the priests’ section of Resurrection Cemetery in Jefferson City.
Among the highlights of Bishop Gaydos’s tenure here were the establishment of a diocesan affiliate of Catholic Charities USA, the building of the Alphonse J. Schwartze Memorial Catholic Center in Jefferson City, the opening of Fr. Tolton Regional Catholic High School in Columbia, the intensification of formation for permanent deacons, and the inviting of a new wave of missionary priests from around the world to minister here.
“None of this is my work,” Bishop Gaydos insisted in an August 2022 interview. “It’s the work of the Holy Spirit.”
Little Rome to Eternal Rome
Bishop Gaydos served for 28 years as a priest of the St. Louis archdiocese — sometimes referred to as the “Rome of the West” — before becoming Bishop of Jefferson City in 1997.
He was born on August 14, 1943, in St. Louis, the oldest of four sons of the late George and Carrie Lee (Pearson) Gaydos.
He grew up in the Benton Park neighborhood of South St. Louis, within sight of many Catholic churches.
He attended St. Agnes School and served Mass in St. Agnes Church.
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet at the school recognized priestly potential in him. So did Rhineland native Father Arnold Bruckerhoff and St. Thomas native Father (later Monsignor) Bernard Boessen, who served at St. Agnes.
Both priests were from what is now the Jefferson City diocese.
“I always say, it was Fr. Bruckerhoff who sent me to the seminary and Fr. Boessen who kept me in the seminary,” Bishop Gaydos once recalled.
He attended the St. Louis Preparatory Seminary high school, followed by four years at Cardinal Glennon College, both on the grounds of Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis.
He studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome while continuing his priestly formation at the Pontifical North American College.
He was in Rome during the final session and conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
He was ordained a transitional deacon in the Chapel of the Pontifical North American College on May 5, 1968.
On December 20 of that year, at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Bishop Francis F. Reh, seminary rector, ordained Bishop Gaydos and 64 other seminarians to the Holy Priesthood.
Bishop Gaydos offered his First Mass the next morning under the famous icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in St. Alphonsus Liguori Church on the Via Merulana in Rome.
He completed his studies in the Eternal City before returning to Missouri.
A priest forever
In the St. Louis archdiocese, Bishop Gaydos served as associate pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Manchester from 1969-74, while it was rapidly becoming the largest parish in Missouri; associate pastor of St. Cecilia Parish in St. Louis from 1974-77; priest secretary to the Archbishop and assistant chancellor of the archdiocese from 1977-81; priest secretary to the Archbishop and chancellor of the archdiocese from 1981-90; and pastor of St. Gerard Majella Parish in Kirkwood from 1990-95.
He taught at his alma mater, St. Louis Preparatory Seminary South, from 1972-77 and helped establish the archdiocese’s discernment and formation process for permanent deacons.
As priest secretary to the Archbishop, he assisted Cardinal John J. Carberry, now deceased, in answering correspondence, scheduling parish visits and other events in the archdiocese, and researching liturgical protocol.
In 1978, he accompanied Cardinal Carberry to the funeral of Pope St. Paul VI and to the conclave at which the cardinals elected Blessed Pope John Paul I.
A month later, they returned to the Vatican for the newly elected Pontiff’s funeral and for the election of Pope St. John Paul II.
Cardinal Carberry retired in 1980. His successor, Archbishop John L. May, now deceased, appointed Bishop Gaydos to serve as chancellor for the archdiocese and to continue as his priest secretary and his master of ceremonies.
Bishop Gaydos did so for 10 years, including the Archbishop’s three-year term as president of what is now the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pope St. John Paul II designated him an Honorary Prelate, with the title Reverend Monsignor, on May 30, 1986.
Bishop Gaydos was then appointed pastor of St. Gerard Majella Parish in Kirkwood. Years later, the parish would build a school library and name it in his honor.
Archbishop (later Cardinal) Justin F. Rigali, now retired, appointed him one of the vicars general for the archdiocese in 1996.
In that role, Bishop Gaydos helped the Archbishop with the administration of three deaneries and served as archdiocesan vicar for priests.
He was also a member of: the board of Queen of Peace Home, the Archdiocesan Task force for AIDS, the Board of Trustees of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, the archdiocesan finance council, the archdiocesan council of priests, and the archdiocesan pastoral planning team.
“All my life”
In June of 1997, in the Archbishop’s Residence on Lindell Boulevard, Archbishop Rigali told Bishop Gaydos: “Pope John Paul II has decided to send you to be the next Bishop of Jefferson City.”
In a statement to the archdiocesan newspaper, the Archbishop said Pope St. John Paul had “chosen well and wisely in the appointment.”
“Bishop-elect Gaydos brings to that local Church gifts of a keen intellect, practical wisdom, an understanding heart, genuine zeal for the Gospel and a compelling love for our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church,” the Archbishop stated.
Bishop Gaydos referred to his appointment as “the day the sky fell in.”
“But from the beginning, I was overcome by the welcoming overtures of a very hospitable people,” he recalled in 2018. “In a sense, I felt like I’d been here all my life.”
On a very hot August 27, 1997, in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, Archbishop Rigali ordained him the third Bishop of this diocese.
More than 30 other Bishops — including Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Alabama; and Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe, Bishop Gaydos’ predecessor of 28 years — took part in the Ordination Rite.
Gaydos means “shepherd” in Slovak, the language of his ancestors, so the new Bishop chose “With a Shepherd’s Care” to be his episcopal motto.
Shepherd’s apprentice
When ordaining priests and deacons, Bishop Gaydos would refer in his homilies to how they would minister in communion with and under obedience to the Successors of the Apostles.
“And I still can’t believe you’re looking at one of them!” he would add with unfeigned wonder.
In two decades as head of this diocese, Bishop Gaydos stayed focused on evangelization in light of sweeping demographic changes and the diminishing number of available priests.
Churches, schools and Newman centers were built or expanded on his watch.
In 2004, Emil Schwartz of Westphalia and the family of his brother, the late Alphonse J. Schwartze, donated the funding to build the Alphonse J. Schwartze Memorial Catholic Center in Jefferson City, which Bishop Gaydos and his fellow Missouri Bishops blessed after its completion.
The diocese celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006-07, with parishioners pledging $25 million to a diocesan capital campaign.
Bishop Gaydos worked with deacons and laypeople to establish parish conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, providing a prayerful and distinctly Catholic way to help local people in need.
Those efforts, coupled with the diocese’s already robust refugee resettlement, prison ministry, social concerns, rural life and family life efforts, led to the creation of Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri (CCCNMO) in 2011.
“Many, many people had a hand in bringing Catholic Charities into being,” Bishop Gaydos noted.
He worked with Catholics in and near Columbia and throughout the diocese to establish Fr. Tolton Regional Catholic High School, which opened in 2011.
He and his advisors worked to develop and implement a diocesan pastoral plan, with emphasis on building up family life; promoting deeper knowledge and understanding of the faith; and creating a more welcoming environment in all parishes for newcomers, immigrants, the marginalized and the inactive.
One of the concrete effects of that plan was enhanced outreach and ministry to the growing populations of Hispanic Catholics throughout the diocese.
An intensive, two-year consultation in 2015 led to the reaffirmation of those priorities, along with a realignment of the Chancery staff to help it become more collaborative and directly focused on the needs of the people in the parishes.
Bishop Gaydos worked with three vicars general — the late Monsignor Michael J. Wilbers, Monsignor Gregory L. Higley and Father Joseph S. Corel — to invite and welcome missionary priests from Africa, India and South America to serve in the diocese.
“These priests from all these faraway places — their sense of mission and dedication is such a great gift to us,” Bishop Gaydos said.
He staunchly championed the forming and dispatching of permanent deacons in parishes throughout the diocese.
“We don’t ordain deacons because we don’t have enough priests,” he was fond of saying. “We ordain deacons because we need more deacons!”
The most difficult challenge of his episcopacy involved coming to terms with and addressing the fact that members of the clergy here had sexually abused children who were entrusted to their care.
Priests of the diocese who were deemed to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors in the past were removed from ministry, and new, robust safeguards in keeping with the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People were implemented and refined.
Bishop Gaydos served on many national Church committees, including the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ committees on world missions, communications, priestly life, administration, marriage and family life, and interreligious affairs, and the subcommittee for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.
“First and only day”
Grateful to those who helped build up the Church ahead of him, Bishop Gaydos often proclaimed with relish that “we truly stand on the shoulders of giants!”
Gratitude was a consistent theme of his teaching.
“How could we ever hold anything back from a God who holds absolutely nothing back from us?” he would inquire from the pulpit.
Bishop Gaydos likened his vision of heaven to a combination of the best of each stage of human existence.
“Those in the prime of life, they remind us of how fine it is to be vigorous and strong,” the Bishop once preached. “They remind us of what it’s like to really feel good! How it feels to be busy about doing important things with our lives.
“The vigorous youth remind us of the innocent joy and anticipation we’re going to feel on that first and only day of eternity!” he continued.
“And those in their last days, those who are very old, remind us that if we only have patience and not give up, the Lord will come to us and take us home on that first and only day of eternity.”
Bishop Gaydos was deeply convicted of the healing power of God’s mercy and reconciliation.
Once, when someone wondered aloud at the disposition of the soul of a man who had recently died, the Bishop thundered: “Never ... EVER ... underestimate the power of God’s mercy! ... Ever!”
“This is the place”
Pope Francis on November 21, 2017, appointed Bishop (now Archbishop) W. Shawn McKnight to be the fourth Bishop of Jefferson City.
Although Bishop Gaydos had requested to be allowed to retire before the customary age of 75, due to declining health, the appointment of a new bishop eight months early came as a surprise to him and to the rest of the diocese.
He was relieved to hand over the reins, stating that his lifelong ambition had been simply “to be faithful to my calling from God.”
He recalled telling Archbishop McKnight: “If you have to be a Bishop these days, this is the place to do it.”
After Archbishop McKnight’s ordination and installation on Feb. 6, 2018, Bishop Gaydos took up residence in the Cathedral of St. Joseph Rectory in Jefferson City, where he continued offering daily Mass, traveling, and keeping up with voluminous correspondence.
On June 1, 2024, he greeted newly ordained Father Christopher Hoffmann and Deacon (now Father) Gregory Clever after their Ordination Mass.
“You never know what God is going to do if you keep your heart open to him,” he told them.
Bishop Gaydos moved to St. Agnes Home in Kirkwood in July of that year.
“My heart remains in Jefferson City and I pray daily for all the local Church and everyone who is a part of it,” he stated at that time.
The home is named in honor of the same saint as Bishop Gaydos’s childhood parish in St. Louis.
He said that although he was feeling healthy for his age, the rheumatoid arthritis that had been causing him discomfort for years was “taking its toll.”
“You’re not going to stop it,” he stated. “All you can do is try to slow it down.”
Upon his 25th anniversary as a Bishop in August 2022, Bishop Gaydos asked for prayers “that the Lord will keep me faithful until He calls me home.”
He said he was grateful to have Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet as teachers in grade school, “because with St. Joseph, you always pray for a happy death.”
“I’m ready,” Bishop Gaydos stated. “I’ve had a great life. I’m in no rush, but I’m ready.”
