Gregory John Hartmayer
Gregory John Hartmayer was born on November 21, 1951, in Buffalo, New York, and entered the Conventual Franciscans, making his solemn profession as a friar before his ordination to the priesthood on May 5, 1979, at the cathedral in Albany. His priesthood was spent largely in Catholic education and parish ministry, the twin works of his order's province, and he rose within the Franciscans' leadership before Rome called him to the episcopate.
Pope Benedict XVI named him Bishop of Savannah on July 19, 2011, and he was ordained a bishop that October in the cathedral where he would serve for nine years, overseeing a building program of new churches, schools and a parish across south Georgia. On March 5, 2020, Pope Francis appointed him Archbishop of Atlanta - the first Conventual Franciscan to lead an American archdiocese - and he was installed on May 6, 2020, in a small ceremony in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Atlanta he shepherds an archdiocese of more than a million Catholics. His September 2021 implementation of Traditionis Custodes preserved the Traditional Latin Mass at two designated locations, including the Fraternity of St. Peter's personal parish in Mableton, rather than suppressing it. In 2024 he formed an LGBTQ+ Pastoral Affairs Commission out of the archdiocese's synod listening sessions, a move praised by progressive Catholics and received warily by traditional ones, though he framed it as listening rather than doctrinal change.
- 2021-09Implementation memo on Traditionis Custodes: the older rite preserved at the two designated locations - St. Francis de Sales, Mableton, and St. Monica, Duluth - rather than suppressed, and not authorized elsewhere in the archdiocese. His memo urged that eucharistic liturgies be celebrated 'with utmost reverence and respect'. ↗
Archbishop Hartmayer's handling of the ancient Mass is, by the standards of this unhappy era, among the gentler. When Traditionis Custodes came in 2021, he did not suppress the Traditional Latin Mass in Atlanta. His memo preserved it at two locations — the Fraternity of St. Peter's personal parish of St. Francis de Sales in Mableton, which continues to offer the old rite and its sacraments daily, and a weekly Mass at St. Monica in Duluth. Both remain active. He barred other priests from celebrating it publicly, which is a real restriction; but he kept the lamp lit where it was already burning.
He is no champion of the old rite, and traditional Catholics will note his 2024 LGBTQ+ commission with unease. But the test of this page is the Mass, and on that test he chose preservation over suppression — a choice that looks better with every diocese that chose otherwise.
A mixed record, then, and on the merciful end of the spectrum: a bishop who applied a restrictive law without zeal, and left the faithful of Atlanta a place to kneel. For that restraint, in these days, the traditional Catholic can be quietly grateful — while wishing the welcome were warmer.