Gregory W. Gordon
Gregory William Gordon was born in Philadelphia on October 4, 1960, and moved with his family to Boulder City, Nevada, in 1972. He attended St. Joseph's University from 1978 to 1980 and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary from 1980 to 1983, then studied in Rome, earning sacred theology degrees in 1986 and 1987. His vocation was cemented by hearing Pope St. John Paul II during the pope's first visit to the United States in 1979. He was ordained a priest for Las Vegas on January 16, 1988.
His priesthood was spent in southern Nevada: parochial vicar at St. Francis de Sales, associate pastor and administrator at St. Anne, campus minister at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, associate pastor at Our Lady of Las Vegas, pastor of St. Christopher in North Las Vegas from 1995 to 2003, and pastor of St. Francis of Assisi, Henderson, from 2004 to 2007. From 2007 to 2014 he served at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, and on returning he was pastor of St. Anne from 2014 to 2020, before being named chancellor, moderator of the curia, and vicar general in 2020. Pope Benedict XVI had named him a monsignor in 2009.
Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop of Las Vegas on May 28, 2021, and he was consecrated on July 16, 2021, at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer, the diocese's first auxiliary bishop, with the titular see of Novapietra. He remains vicar general since Las Vegas became an archdiocese on May 30, 2023, under Archbishop George Leo Thomas. He speaks English and Spanish, and on the old Mass he has no record of his own.
On the Traditional Latin Mass, Bishop Gordon has no record of his own, and the honest panel says so. He was consecrated on July 16, 2021, the very day Traditionis custodes was issued, as the first auxiliary bishop of a young and fast-growing diocese. Search as one will, there is no decree in his name, no homily defending or opposing the old rite, no public word for or against it.
The provision he serves under is a permissive one, and it belongs to his archbishop. Archbishop Thomas allowed the established traditional group, which already celebrated with his permission, simply to carry on as usual, with no suppressions recorded. Gordon's own offices - chancellor, moderator of the curia, vicar general - put him at the center of the diocese's administration, but administering a permissive settlement is not the same as authoring it, and this panel does not pretend otherwise.
That is why the verdict here is narrow and exact: no record. Gordon's ministry has been parish pastoring, nunciature service, and curial governance in a desert diocese, not liturgical policymaking. A faithful auxiliary of a permissive archbishop, with no liturgical heart yet shown of his own, for good or for ill.