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A quiet preserver
Living · United States · Bishop
Terry R. LaValley
Bishop of Ogdensburg
Bishop
1956
1988
Ordained
2010
Consecrated Bishop
Ogdensburg
Diocese
United States
Country
The Life
Terry Ronald LaValley was born on March 26, 1956, in Plattsburgh, the second of six children of Ronald and Doris LaValley, and raised in St. Ann's Parish at Mooers Forks, near the Canadian border. After public schools and two years at SUNY Albany, he served six years in the United States Navy - the anchor on his coat of arms still marks the sailor - took his degree in 1980, and entered Wadhams Hall Seminary-College in 1983.
He was ordained a priest on September 24, 1988, by Bishop Stanislaus J. Brzana, with a Master of Divinity from Christ the King Seminary. After parish work in Massena he read canon law at St. Paul's University in Ottawa, taking his licentiate in 1994, and then rose through the diocese's government: adjutant judicial vicar, episcopal vicar for diocesan services, chancellor, pastor at Heuvelton and Gouverneur, rector of St. Mary's Cathedral. In 2004 Bishop Cunningham made him the delegate for compliance with the Dallas Charter - the brief that would shadow his episcopate. When Cunningham left for Syracuse, the consultors elected LaValley administrator on May 28, 2009.
Benedict XVI named him the fourteenth Bishop of Ogdensburg on February 23, 2010; ordained and installed at St. Mary's Cathedral on April 30, 2010 - the first native son to hold the see since 1921 - he took the motto 'Follow me.' He holds it still, shepherding 12,036 square miles of North Country from the St. Lawrence River to Lake Champlain.
Major Works & Initiatives
Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (2018)
In March 2018, before New York's Child Victims Act passed, he established a voluntary, independently administered compensation program for survivors of clergy abuse in the diocese, writing personally to the 38 known victims; the program's findings, published that October, showed the abuse had been more widespread than previously believed, and the diocese spent $5.4 million settling claims that year.
The diocese's 150th year and its pastoral priorities (2022)
He led the diocese through its sesquicentennial in 2022 under the pastoral priorities set on his watch - creating a culture of vocations, strengthening faith formation in family life, and building parishes with living stones - priorities the diocese still professes in 2024-2026.
A negotiated path out of Chapter 11 (2023-2026)
Having taken the diocese into Chapter 11 reorganization in July 2023 to resolve the Child Victims Act claims globally, he announced on May 19, 2026 a settlement in principle under which the diocese, parishes, schools and other Catholic entities will contribute $45 million to a survivors' trust, and in August 2026 set out the plan - including brief pre-packaged parish filings - meant to bring the diocese out of bankruptcy.
In His Own Words
I am committed to serving the spiritual well-being of those Catholics in our diocese who pray the Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal as well as all who pray the Mass according to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Letter to the priests and deacons of the diocese on Traditionis Custodes, July 20, 2021In the meantime, I am happy to grant the necessary faculties so that those priests who are already celebrating the rites of the Extraordinary Form (according to the 1962 Roman Missal) may continue to do so in those locations where they are currently celebrated.
Letter to the priests and deacons of the diocese on Traditionis Custodes, July 20, 2021I must instruct the faithful of the Diocese of Ogdensburg to avoid participating in the activities of the Society of St. Pius X at St. Therese Chapel in Nicholville, NY as well as their schools.
Letter to the diocesan family on the Society of St. Pius X, July 1, 2026My prayer is that this process and this settlement will bring peace and healing to survivors and to the faithful whose hearts were broken by the gravely sinful conduct of Church leaders and representatives.
Letter announcing the Chapter 11 settlement in principle, May 19, 2026Controversies
The abuse scandal on his watch as an official (2018)
LaValley had been the diocese's Charter-compliance delegate since 2004 and a senior official since the 1990s; SNAP protested his appointment as bishop in 2010. In North Country Public Radio's 2018 profile he denied any role in reassigning abusive clergy ('Not to my knowledge,' he said, of transfers made while he was an official). He at first declined to publish the names of credibly accused priests, citing victims' privacy, before releasing a list in November 2018; and in May 2018 he publicly opposed the Child Victims Act even as he built the diocese's own compensation program.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy (2023)
On July 17, 2023, he authorized the diocese's Chapter 11 filing in the face of 138 Child Victims Act lawsuits (124 still pending, alleging abuse from the 1940s through the 1990s). Attorneys for survivors accused the diocese of using bankruptcy to obstruct survivors' long-awaited day in court; LaValley answered that reorganization was the only way to treat every claimant fairly rather than exhaust the funds on the first cases tried. The case was still unresolved at the as-of date, with a $45 million settlement in principle announced in May 2026.
The Old Mass, See by See
Ogdensburg2010-04-30 – presentKept as it was
What he inheritedNothing was inherited from another Ogdensburg bishop in the TC era: LaValley himself was the ordinary when Traditionis Custodes was issued on July 16, 2021, in office since his ordination and installation on April 30, 2010, and he remains in office at the as-of date, so the see was never vacant or impeded in the window - on the old Mass, his record in this era is the record he made, on provision that had itself grown up under his own episcopate before 2021. That pre-TC provision, as documented: an Extraordinary Form Mass every Sunday at St. Mary's, Potsdam, advertised diocesan-wide as early as 2017 (then at 9:30 a.m.); a Latin Mass at St. Mary's, Evans Mills, noted in a February 2021 parish bulletin (Wednesdays at 9:00 a.m., celebrated by a visiting priest); and the Sunday 1 p.m. Extraordinary Form Mass at St. Patrick's, Port Henry, advertised in the diocesan paper of July 28, 2021. His July 20, 2021 letter speaks of the old rite being celebrated in 'locations' plural without naming or counting them, and no source consulted carries a diocesan census for July 2021 or for 2026, so sites_before and sites_now are null and the accounting is this prose: three sites documented at the era's opening; two of them - Potsdam and Evans Mills - documented continuously to the as-of date, licensed by Rome in 2025 and named by the bishop himself in July 2026; Port Henry gone from its parish's schedules by May 2025, its ending undated and unattributed in every source consulted.
- 2021-07-20Four days after Traditionis Custodes, Bishop LaValley issued a letter to the priests and deacons of the diocese (published in the North Country Catholic of July 28, 2021). He wrote that he was committed to serving Catholics who pray the Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal as well as those who pray it according to the reforms of Vatican II, and: 'In the meantime, I am happy to grant the necessary faculties so that those priests who are already celebrating the rites of the Extraordinary Form (according to the 1962 Roman Missal) may continue to do so in those locations where they are currently celebrated. No new public liturgical celebration of the Extraordinary Form should be introduced anywhere in the diocese at this time without my written permission. Further guidance will be offered as study of the document proceeds.' No further guidance from him on the motu proprio was found in any source consulted. The Catholic News Agency / National Catholic Register tracker of July 2021 recorded Ogdensburg as N/A - it missed this letter. ↗
- 2021-07-28The same July 28, 2021 issue of the diocesan paper, in its Around the Diocese listings for Essex County, advertised: 'Port Henry - Extraordinary Form Latin Mass to be held each Sunday. Schedule: 1 p.m. on Sundays. Place: St. Patrick's Church. Features: The traditional Latin Mass celebrated according to the 1962 Missal of St. John XXIII.' This is a third diocesan old-Mass site documented at the opening of the TC era, alongside Potsdam and Evans Mills (see the inherited note). By the Catholic Community of Moriah's bulletin of May 4, 2025, St. Patrick's, Port Henry, listed only a Saturday vigil and an 11 a.m. Sunday Mass, with no Latin Mass; when and why the Port Henry Mass ended was not established by any source consulted, and no act of Bishop LaValley ending it has been found. ↗
- 2025-12-03The Dicastery for Divine Worship's published Index Decretorum for 2025 records, under 3 December 2025, Prot. N. 617/25, OGDENSBURGENSIS: a licence to celebrate according to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. John XXIII in 1962 in the parish church of St. Mary in Potsdam and in the parish church of St. Mary in Evans Mills, granted 'in aliud biennium' - for another two years. A Roman licence of this kind is issued on the diocesan bishop's application to dispense from Article 3 section 2 of Traditionis Custodes for parish churches, and the words 'another two years' record that a previous licence for the same two churches had run before it. ↗
- 2026-07-01On the day of the SSPX's unauthorized episcopal ordinations at Econe, Bishop LaValley wrote to the diocesan family declaring the Society in formal schism, instructing the faithful to avoid SSPX activities at St. Therese Chapel in Nicholville, NY, and at SSPX schools, and inviting those who had been attending SSPX Masses 'to now look for spiritual counsel and nourishment at the traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments celebrated at St. Mary's Church in Potsdam, NY or St. Mary's Church in Evans Mills, NY.' He also invited SSPX priests who did not wish to be part of the break to come to him for help remaining within the Church. The letter is his own public naming, in 2026, of the diocese's two traditional Latin Mass sites. ↗
- 2026-07-12The St. Mary's, Potsdam, parish bulletin of July 12, 2026 lists the Sunday 9:00 a.m. 'Latin Mass (Potsdam)' and, in the pastor's column, contrasts the readings heard 'at the Ordinary form Masses' with the Gospel 'we'll hear at the Traditional Latin Mass,' printing a separate Latin Mass readings column (Romans 6:19-23 and Matthew 7:15-21 for July 12; Romans 8:12-17 and Luke 16:1-9 for July 19) - the parish's own identification of its 9 a.m. Latin Mass as the traditional, 1962-rite Mass. The bulletin of October 4, 2026 still lists the same Sunday 9:00 a.m. Latin Mass at Potsdam. ↗
Rome: Dicastery for Divine Worship, Prot. N. 617/25, 3 December 2025: licence to celebrate according to the 1962 Roman Missal in the parish churches of St. Mary, Potsdam, and St. Mary, Evans Mills, granted in aliud biennium (for another two years) - a dispensation from Article 3 section 2 of Traditionis Custodes, which reserves parish-church celebrations to the Holy See, issued on the diocesan bishop's application. The renewal wording presupposes an earlier licence for the same two churches; that earlier decree is not in the Dicastery's published indexes consulted for this draft (the online collection begins in 2023) and its date was not established.
Since the SSPX decree of 2 July 2026: In a signed letter to the diocesan family dated July 1, 2026, the day the SSPX consecrated four bishops at Econe without papal mandate, LaValley declared the Society to be in formal schism with the Roman Catholic Church, said the consecrating and consecrated bishops had incurred automatic excommunication, and instructed the faithful of Ogdensburg to avoid participating in SSPX activities at St. Therese Chapel in Nicholville, NY, and at SSPX schools, it being illicit and forbidden to receive the Society's sacraments (danger-of-death Penance excepted). He invited those who had been attending SSPX Masses to seek counsel and nourishment instead at the traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments at St. Mary's Church in Potsdam or St. Mary's Church in Evans Mills, and told SSPX priests who did not wish to be part of the break that he was always open to receiving them and helping them remain within the Church. The diocesan office's accompanying FAQ, reprinted in parish bulletins, set out the same position. ↗
Reviewed 2026-10-23Confidence: medium
Domus Dei’s Verdict
The Bishop & the Mass of Ages
Ogdensburg never made the Traditionis Custodes headlines, and the national trackers missed what its bishop actually did: the Catholic News Agency survey of July 2021 lists the diocese as 'N/A.' In fact, four days after the motu proprio, on July 20, 2021, Bishop LaValley wrote to his priests and deacons granting 'the necessary faculties so that those priests who are already celebrating the rites of the Extraordinary Form (according to the 1962 Roman Missal) may continue to do so in those locations where they are currently celebrated.' No site was closed, no priest was stood down. The one restriction in the letter was forward-looking: no new public celebration of the old rite anywhere in the diocese without his written permission.
Preservation after February 2023 took paperwork, and he did it. When Rome's rescript reserved the use of parish churches for the 1962 Missal to the Holy See, Ogdensburg's two surviving sites were both parish churches - St. Mary's in Potsdam and St. Mary's in Evans Mills - and the Dicastery for Divine Worship's published index records the licence for both, renewed on December 3, 2025 'for another two years.' Both Masses are still being said in 2026: Potsdam's pastor calls the Sunday 9 a.m. 'Latin Mass' the Traditional Latin Mass in his own bulletin column, and when the SSPX consecrations came in July 2026, LaValley himself directed the Society's local faithful to 'the traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments celebrated at St. Mary's Church in Potsdam, NY or St. Mary's Church in Evans Mills, NY.' A third site documented in July 2021 - a Sunday 1 p.m. Extraordinary Form Mass at St. Patrick's, Port Henry - has since disappeared from its parish's schedules; no act of the bishop ending it has been found, and this dossier does not invent one.
The limits keep the verdict modest, and they are his own choices. He has never publicly defended the old Missal on its merits, authorized no new site that anyone can point to, and hosted no FSSP, ICKSP or other society apostolate; the 'further guidance' promised in 2021 was never published in any source found. But the shepherd's question is whether the sheep attached to the old Mass were fed or scattered. In Ogdensburg they were fed - by a dated faculty grant in the first week, by a Roman licence sought and renewed when the law tightened, and by a bishop who, at the moment of schism in 2026, pointed the wandering to his own diocesan altars rather than to none. A quiet preserver, on the evidence of his deeds.
References & Further Reading
1.
Bishop Terry Ronald LaValleyBishop ID blavall, verified by fetching the page: its title is 'Bishop Terry Ronald LaValley [Catholic-Hierarchy]' and its lineage block runs through Archbishop Timothy Dolan, his consecrator. The text extraction returned the lineage section only, not the events table.
2.
Bishop - Biography of Most Rev. Terry R. LaValleyPrimary diocesan biography and the possession source: administrator from May 28, 2009 'until his Ordination and Installation as the 14th Bishop of Ogdensburg on Friday, 30 April 2010.' Also: born March 26, 1956; ordained priest September 24, 1988; canon law licentiate, St. Paul's University, Ottawa, May 1994; Charter-compliance delegate from August 2004.
3.
Northernmost diocese in NY receives bishop from Pope BenedictFebruary 23, 2010: Benedict XVI appointed Fr. Terry LaValley, then diocesan administrator, the 14th Bishop of Ogdensburg; ordination and installation set for April 30, 2010 at St. Mary's Cathedral.
4.
North Country Catholic, July 28, 2021 (Vol. 76, No. 14)The primary TC-era source. Editor's note (Diocesan Life, p. 2): 'Bishop Terry R. LaValley issued the following letter to priests and deacons of the diocese on July 20' - the letter granting faculties to priests already celebrating the Extraordinary Form, in the locations where it was currently celebrated, with no new public celebration without his written permission; both Traditionis Custodes quotes are from it. The same issue's Around the Diocese listings (Essex) advertise the Port Henry Extraordinary Form Latin Mass, Sundays at 1 p.m., St. Patrick's Church, 'celebrated according to the 1962 Missal of St. John XXIII.' Two-column OCR is scrambled in extraction; the letter's text was reconstructed from consecutive column fragments and matches the CNS roundup of his words printed in the same issue.
5.
Pope Francis' Traditional Latin Mass Restrictions: Has Your Diocese Responded Yet?The July 2021 diocese-by-diocese tracker records 'Diocese of Ogdensburg: N/A' - it missed LaValley's July 20 letter, which the diocesan paper published on July 28, 2021.
6.
Index Decretorum Anni MMXXV, entry of 3 December 2025, Prot. N. 617/25OGDENSBURGENSIS: licence to celebrate according to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. John XXIII in 1962 in the parish church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Potsdam and in the parish church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Evans Mills, granted 'in aliud biennium' - for another two years.
7.
34 dioceses received TLM permissions in 2025Secondary analysis of the Dicastery's 2025 index: Ogdensburg is named among the dioceses whose parish churches appear in the 2025 decrees, and the article explains that 'in aliud biennium' marks a renewal of an existing permission, not a first grant.
8.
St. Mary's, Potsdam - parish bulletin, July 12, 2026Fetched: Sunday schedule lists '9:00 am Latin Mass (Potsdam)'; the pastor's column contrasts 'the Ordinary form Masses' with 'the Traditional Latin Mass' and gives the old rite a different Gospel (Matthew 7 against Matthew 13), and the bulletin's readings table prints distinct Latin Mass readings (Romans 6 and Matthew 7; the following week Romans 8 and Luke 16) - the parish's own identification of its Latin Mass as the 1962 rite. The same bulletin (p. 6) reprints the diocesan office's FAQ on the SSPX consecrations.
9.
St. Mary's, Potsdam - parish bulletin, October 4, 2026Fetched: the Sunday 9:00 a.m. Latin Mass at St. Mary's, Potsdam, is still on the parish schedule in the month of the as-of date.
10.
Letter to the diocesan family on the Society of St. Pius X, July 1, 2026His signed letter of July 1, 2026, fetched from the diocesan site: the SSPX is in 'formal schism' after that day's unauthorized episcopal ordinations; the faithful are instructed to avoid SSPX activities at St. Therese Chapel, Nicholville, and SSPX schools, and are invited instead to 'the traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments celebrated at St. Mary's Church in Potsdam, NY or St. Mary's Church in Evans Mills, NY'; SSPX priests unwilling to join the break are invited to come to him. OCR of the scanned letter is imperfect; the quoted sentences are legible in full.
11.
Parish bulletin, April 2, 2017 (Parish of the Visitation and St. Raymond, Norwood)Pre-TC context, search-verified: a standing notice, 'LATIN MASS - For anyone who would like to attend the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. There is a Mass every Sunday at 9:30AM at St. Mary's Church in Potsdam' - the Potsdam Extraordinary Form Mass predates Traditionis Custodes by years.
12.
The Catholic Communities of Crown Point & Moriah - bulletin, May 4, 2025Search-verified: St. Patrick's, Port Henry, lists a Saturday 4:00 p.m. vigil and an 11:00 a.m. Sunday Mass, with no 1 p.m. Latin Mass - the Port Henry Extraordinary Form Mass of July 2021 no longer appears in its own parish's schedule.
13.
In career defined by the priest abuse scandal, Bishop LaValley seeks a path forwardThe May 10, 2018 profile: his opposition to the Child Victims Act, the 38 letters sent to known victims, and the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program ('Independence, that's important to me, it's not the bishop calling all the shots'). A companion NCPR report of October 11, 2018 records the IRCP findings, the $5.4 million spent on settlements that year, and his denial of any role in reassigning abusive clergy.
14.
Diocese of Ogdensburg Files for Bankruptcy in 'Difficult, Painful Decision'July 2023: Chapter 11 filed July 17, 2023; 138 lawsuits filed under the Child Victims Act, 14 resolved, the rest beyond the diocese's resources to litigate, per the bishop's video message.
15.
Diocese of Ogdensburg - Reorganization (Chapter 11 letters and FAQ)Fetched: the diocese's own page carrying LaValley's May 19, 2026 letter (settlement in principle; $45 million Catholic Family contribution to a survivor trust; the peace-and-healing quote) and his August 25, 2026 update (parishes to contribute about $28.6 million, the diocese about $6.47 million plus a $10 million loan, with brief pre-packaged parish Chapter 11 filings), plus the diocesan FAQ (138 CVA lawsuits; 124 pending at filing; claims dating from the 1940s to the 1990s). Also proof he remained in office, signing as Bishop of Ogdensburg, through August 2026.
Portrait: Philosopherian / Wikimedia Commons