William J. Waltersheid
William John Waltersheid was born on November 18, 1956, in Ashland, Pennsylvania, the only child of William F. and Margaret M. (Deane) Waltersheid. Educated in the Mount Carmel Area schools, with religious instruction from the Felician Sisters at Holy Spirit School, he graduated from high school in 1974, worked in health care, and graduated from the Pottsville Hospital School of Nursing in 1983.
In 1985 he was accepted as a candidate for the seminary formation program of the Diocese of Harrisburg. He studied at St. John Seminary College in Brighton, Massachusetts, then at the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 1988, earning a Gregorian bachelor's in theology in 1991 and a licentiate in dogmatic theology in 1993. Ordained a deacon in Rome on April 30, 1992, and a priest in Harrisburg on July 11, 1992, by Bishop Nicholas Dattilo, he was parochial vicar at Prince of Peace Parish in Steelton, on the North American College faculty from 1999 to 2003 as vice rector, pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Carlisle from 2003, and diocesan secretary for clergy and consecrated life in Harrisburg from June 2006.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh and titular bishop of California on February 25, 2011, and he was consecrated on April 25, 2011, at St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh. As an auxiliary he served as episcopal vicar for clergy, and in later years as vicar general and episcopal vicar for faith initiatives, under Bishop David Zubik until Eckman succeeded Zubik in July 2025. He remains an auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh at the as-of date.
- 2021-03-25CONTEXT, pre-TC: a Latin Liturgy Association newsletter announced that Waltersheid would offer a Traditional Latin Solemn Pontifical Mass for the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at St. Titus Church in Aliquippa. This is an announcement, not a confirmed celebration report, and it predates Traditionis Custodes (July 16, 2021) by almost four months. It does not move the posture; it is recorded only so that the one pre-TC link in the record is not mistaken for a TC-era act. ↗
Waltersheid has served as an auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh since his consecration on April 25, 2011, under Bishop David Zubik until July 2025 and under Bishop Mark Eckman thereafter. In the Traditionis Custodes era the diocese's governing acts on the 1962 Missal were the ordinary's: Zubik sought and received Holy See permission in April 2022 for the diocesan Traditional Mass at St. Titus Church, Aliquippa, on the third Sunday of each month and on First Fridays, extended it in September 2024, and Eckman, on succeeding Zubik, chose in August 2026 not to seek a further extension, so that the last diocesan Mass there was celebrated on September 4, 2026. The Institute of Christ the King parish at Most Precious Blood of Jesus in Brighton Heights continued separately. None of those decisions was Waltersheid's.
The one Waltersheid link to the older Missal in the record is dated before Traditionis Custodes and therefore cannot move a TC-era posture: a Latin Liturgy Association newsletter announced that he would offer a Traditional Latin Solemn Pontifical Mass for the feast of the Annunciation at St. Titus Church, Aliquippa, on March 25, 2021, almost four months before the motu proprio. That announcement is recorded here as dated context only. No search of diocesan news, Catholic-Hierarchy, and the general record found any TC-era act of his own: no authorization, decree, dispensation request, or appointment sustaining a 1962-Missal celebration, and no record of him celebrating it after July 16, 2021.
The verdict is therefore no_record, and it is a verdict about his own record, not about Pittsburgh's. It would change only if a primary diocesan document surfaces showing Waltersheid himself authorizing, restricting, or sustaining a 1962-Missal celebration in the TC era. Celebrating a pre-TC Mass, serving under an ordinary's regime, and the later lapse of the St. Titus permission under a successor ordinary do not count as acts of his. No site count is assigned to this tenure, because no source carries a count attributable to an auxiliary's own act.