Robert John McClory
Robert John McClory was born on October 10, 1963, in Detroit, Michigan He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and communications from Oakland University in 1985 and a master's degree in public policy and administration from Columbia University in 1987, then a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1991. After practicing civil law for three years, he entered Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit in 1994, then earned degrees in Rome: a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1998 and a canon law licentiate in 2000.
Ordained a priest of Detroit on May 22, 1999, McClory served as an associate pastor, a tribunal judge, Cardinal Maida's administrative secretary, and archdiocesan chancellor from 2003.Named a monsignor in 2005, he later served as vicar general under Archbishop Allen Vigneron, taught canon law, and was pastor of the National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak from 2017.
Pope Francis appointed McClory the fifth Bishop of Gary on November 26, 2019, and he was ordained a bishop and installed at the Cathedral of the Holy Angels in Gary on February 11, 2020, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, to whom he has a particular devotion. His motto is Iesum Dominum Praedicamus, we proclaim Jesus as Lord. He has led a small industrial diocese in northwest Indiana through pastoral-center reorganization and, in recent years, parish mergers.
- 2018-11-01PRE-TC CONTEXT ONLY: Bishop Donald Hying invites the Institute of Christ the King to serve St. Joseph Parish, Hammond, offering the traditional Latin Mass weekly. McClory inherits this apostolate; Hying's invitation cannot move McClory's posture. ↗
- 2022-12-31At the end of 2022, Bishop McClory moves the Latin Mass from St. Joseph's, Hammond, to Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine, Merrillville, where it is currently offered. Date recorded as year-end 2022 because the source gives 'at the end of 2022' without a day or month; the move itself, to a non-parochial shrine, is the governing act. ↗
- 2025-01-01In 2025, the First Friday Mass in Dyer is moved to Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine, Merrillville, joining the Sunday Mass there. Year only, per the source. ↗
- 2026-06-21The Northwest Indiana Latin Mass Community's own page for St Joseph Oratory at Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine, Merrillville records the apostolate served by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, with Sunday, feast-day and First Friday Masses, and records that the Dyer and Hammond Masses were moved there. The page does not name the 1962 Missal in terms; the Institute's charism is the older rite, which is stated here as inference rather than as the source's own words. ↗
<p>Bishop McClory inherited the older liturgy in Gary rather than creating it. In November 2018 his predecessor, Bishop Donald Hying, had invited the Institute of Christ the King to serve St. Joseph Parish in Hammond, answering a petition from the Northwest Indiana Latin Mass Community for a Sunday morning Latin Mass, and the institute's priests offered the traditional Mass there. That invitation is Hying's act, and this dossier records it as context only.</p>
<p>McClory's own act came at the end of 2022, when he moved the Latin Mass from St. Joseph's in Hammond to Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine in Merrillville, where it has been offered ever since. Relocating an apostolate to a non-parochial shrine is a governing decision about where, and therefore whether, the Mass continues, and it kept the diocese's single traditional Mass site alive rather than letting it lapse with its host parish. In 2025 the First Friday Mass in Dyer was moved to the same shrine, consolidating rather than dispersing provision.</p>
<p>The count is therefore unchanged, one site before and one site now, and the verdict is preserved rather than expanded: McClory sustained the inherited Institute apostolate at a new home, he did not add a site or invite a new society. Confidence is medium because the move is documented by the Latin Mass community's own history page and corroborated by the shrine's 2026 schedule and by the diocesan history summary, rather than by a published diocesan decree, and the move's exact day is not recorded in any source found.</p>