Edward M. Lohse
Edward Mark Lohse was born November 23, 1961, in McKean, Pennsylvania, and grew up on the family farm. He earned a B.A. in history from Gannon University (1984), a Master of Divinity from Saint Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, and a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian University in Rome (2015). He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Erie on April 21, 1989.
Lohse spent his entire priestly career in the Diocese of Erie, rising through diocesan administration as vocations director, chancellor, and finally Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia (2017-2023), while directing the diocese's Office for the Protection of Children and Youth. He is fundamentally a canon lawyer and administrator by formation, and early in his priesthood taught Latin, German, and theology at a Catholic high school.
Pope Francis appointed Lohse the fifth Bishop of Kalamazoo on May 23, 2023; he was ordained a bishop and installed at St. Augustine Cathedral on July 25, 2023, succeeding Bishop Paul J. Bradley. As of mid-2026 he sits as the ordinary of Kalamazoo. He inherited a small southwest-Michigan diocese and has kept a low national profile; his public record on the traditional liturgy in Kalamazoo remains essentially undeveloped.
The honest verdict on Bishop Edward Lohse and the traditional liturgy is: too early to judge, and it must be judged by deeds, not by biography. He arrived in Kalamazoo in July 2023 and, as of mid-2026, has left no public fingerprint on the diocese's Latin-Mass policy in either direction. He has issued no known decree, granted no publicized indult, and suppressed nothing. The prudent reading is a bishop maintaining the status quo he inherited while he learns a new and small diocese.
What he inherited matters, and it belongs to his predecessor, not to him. Bishop Paul Bradley responded to Traditionis Custodes in 2021 with norms that were restrictive on paper but not abolitionist: rather than shutting the 1962 Mass down, Bradley required every priest -- resident and visiting -- to seek and receive written authorization to continue offering it, effective August 15, 2021. Priests already celebrating the old Mass were permitted to continue. The most visible fruit of it is St. Mary Parish in Kalamazoo, a diocesan parish that has continued to offer the traditional Mass on a daily basis. None of this is Lohse's doing; it is the ground he stands on.
Two facts keep this from tipping into pessimism. First, Kalamazoo has not followed the harder regional example -- neighboring Detroit moved in 2025 to end the TLM in ordinary parishes, and there is no evidence Kalamazoo has done the same. The daily traditional Mass appears intact under Lohse. Second, Lohse himself once taught Latin and is a canon lawyer, a man formed to work by the book rather than by ideological reflex. That is not the same as being a friend of Tradition. The verdict stands on deeds: so far he has preserved, not attacked. Watch for his first actual decision and judge him then.