Jeffrey Walsh
Jeffrey Joseph Walsh was born on November 29, 1965, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of three brothers, and was educated for a life of service before he was educated for the priesthood: Scranton Central High School, then a bachelor's degree in health and human resources from the University of Scranton in 1987. He went on to Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg for his divinity degree, and Bishop James Timlin ordained him a priest of Scranton on June 25, 1994. He later added a master's degree in Christian spirituality from Creighton (1999) and a master of social work from Marywood University (2010).
Scranton used him everywhere: parochial vicar, pastor, director of formation at St. Pius X Seminary, vocations director, episcopal vicar for the eastern region, secretary for Catholic social services, and finally vicar for clergy - a priest's priest, formed in the care of souls and of priests. On December 21, 2021, Pope Francis named him the sixth Bishop of Gaylord, Michigan, and he was ordained and installed on March 4, 2022, at St. Mary Cathedral in Gaylord, taking a northern-Michigan diocese of small towns and resort country that had been without a bishop of its own for two years.
- 2026-10-02Issued a particular law on versus populum and ad orientem celebration of the reformed Mass (effective October 15, 2026); its final provision expressly exempts the older rite - "Masses celebrated according to the 1962 Missale Romanum are governed by their own norms, so that the particular law promulgated herein does not apply to them" - and Art. 15 of the companion decree on liturgical decorum says the same of the designated churches and monastery where the Traditional Latin Mass is permitted. ↗
- 2026-10-02Issued the companion particular law on decorum in the celebration of Mass, effective October 15, 2026. Much of its content - on chant, incense, bells and silence - is traditional in temper. Art. 15 provides that it does not affect the designated churches or monastery where the Traditional Latin Mass is permitted. ↗
- 2026-10-22Issued a clarifying letter confirming that the October decrees govern the Ordinary Form across the diocese's parishes and leave unaffected the three locations where Mass is celebrated according to the 1962 Missal. ↗
Walsh is the only bishop in this batch who legislated on a tradition-adjacent question in the TC era, and the legislation must be described exactly. His particular law of October 2, 2026, effective October 15, governs the posture of the celebrant in the reformed Mass: on Sundays, holy days of obligation and their vigils, every Mass with a congregation at a free-standing altar is to be versus populum; on other days a parish may have at most two ad orientem Masses, and then only after the pastor has consulted his parish council and catechised the participants. Companion decrees treat decorum in the celebration of Mass - much of their content, on chant, incense, bells and silence, is traditional in temper - and instituted ministries. The ad orientem law is a real restriction on a traditional practice of the Ordinary Form, and it drew recourse and appeals from his own faithful.
But it is not an act against the old Mass, and his own text says so: Article 15 provides that the law does not affect the designated churches or monastery where permission is granted for the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, and his clarifying letter of October 22, 2026, confirmed that the three locations in the diocese where Mass is celebrated according to the 1962 Missal are unaffected. His posture on the 1962 Missal itself is therefore no_record - no TC-era act of his has granted, restricted or suppressed it - while the ad orientem law is recorded in the beyond field of his tenure, where it belongs.