Bishop Emeritus John Raymond Gaydos, 82, who served as the third bishop of Jefferson City, Missouri, from 1997-2017, died Sept. 6 at St. Agnes Retirement Home in Kirkwood.
He had been a priest for 56 years and a bishop for 28.
The St. Louis native led the Church in central and northeastern Missouri through some of its most vexing challenges in the course of his 20-year tenure.
The Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16, at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, with Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski presiding and Archbishop Emeritus George J. Lucas of Omaha, Nebraska, preaching the homily.
A wake and visitation will be from 3-7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 15, with a vigil service and prayers at 7 p.m. Both ceremonies will be open to the public and will be livestreamed on the Diocese of Jefferson City Facebook page.
Bishop Gaydos served for 28 years as a priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese before becoming bishop of Jefferson City in 1997.
He was born on Aug. 14, 1943, in St. Louis, the oldest of four sons of the late George and Carrie (Lee) Gaydos. He grew up in the Benton Park neighborhood of south St. Louis and attended St. Agnes Parish and School.
He attended the St. Louis Preparatory Seminary high school, followed by four years at Cardinal Glennon College. He studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome while continuing his priestly formation at the Pontifical North American College (PNAC). He was in Rome during the final session and conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
He was ordained a transitional deacon in the Chapel of the Pontifical North American College on May 5, 1968. On Dec. 20 of that year, at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Bishop Francis F. Reh, seminary rector, ordained Bishop Gaydos and 64 other seminarians to the priesthood. He completed his studies in Rome before returning to Missouri.
In the St. Louis Archdiocese, Bishop Gaydos served as associate pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Manchester from 1969-74, while it was rapidly becoming the largest parish in Missouri; associate pastor of St. Cecilia Parish in St. Louis from 1974-77; priest secretary to the archbishop and assistant chancellor of the archdiocese from 1977-81; priest secretary to the archbishop and chancellor of the archdiocese from 1981-90; and pastor of St. Gerard Majella Parish in Kirkwood from 1990-95.
He taught at his alma mater, St. Louis Preparatory Seminary South, from 1972-77 and helped establish the archdiocese’s discernment and formation process for permanent deacons.
In 1978, he accompanied Cardinal John J. Carberry to the funeral of Pope St. Paul VI and to the conclave at which the cardinals elected Blessed Pope John Paul I. A month later, they returned to the Vatican for the newly elected pontiff’s funeral and for the election of Pope St. John Paul II.
Cardinal Carberry retired in 1980. His successor, Archbishop John L. May, appointed Bishop Gaydos to serve as chancellor for the archdiocese and to continue as his priest secretary and his master of ceremonies. Bishop Gaydos did so for 10 years, including the archbishop’s three-year term as president of what is now the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Then-Archbishop Justin F. Rigali appointed him vicar for priests for the archdiocese in 1995. In that role, Bishop Gaydos helped the archbishop with the administration of three deaneries and served as archdiocesan vicar for priests.
In June 1997, Pope John Paul II appointed him as bishop of the Diocese of Jefferson City. He was ordained as third bishop of the diocese on Aug. 27, 1997, at the Cathedral of St. Joseph.
Bishop Gaydos referred to his appointment as “the day the sky fell in.”
“But from the beginning, I was overcome by the welcoming overtures of a very hospitable people,” he recalled in 2018. “In a sense, I felt like I’d been here all my life.”
In two decades as head of Jefferson City, Bishop Gaydos stayed focused on evangelization in light of sweeping demographic changes and a diminishing number of available priests.
Churches, schools and Newman centers were built or expanded on his watch.
Bishop Gaydos worked with deacons and laypeople to establish parish conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, providing a prayerful and distinctly Catholic way to help local people in need.
Those efforts, coupled with the diocese’s already robust refugee resettlement, prison ministry, social concerns, rural life and family life efforts, led to the creation of Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri (CCCNMO) in 2011.
He worked with Catholics in and near Columbia and throughout the diocese to establish Father Tolton Regional Catholic High School, which opened in 2011.
He and his advisors worked to develop and implement a diocesan pastoral plan, with emphasis on building up family life; promoting deeper knowledge and understanding of the faith; and creating a more welcoming environment in all parishes for newcomers, immigrants, the marginalized and the inactive.
One of the concrete effects of that plan was enhanced outreach and ministry to the growing populations of Hispanic Catholics throughout the diocese.
An intensive, two-year consultation in 2015 led to the reaffirmation of those priorities, along with a realignment of the chancery staff to help it become more collaborative and directly focused on the needs of the people in the parishes.
The most difficult challenge of his episcopacy involved coming to terms with and addressing clergy sexual abuse, as he implemented and refined robust safeguards in keeping with the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Bishop Gaydos served on many national Church committees, including the U.S. bishops’ committees on world missions, communications, priestly life, administration, marriage and family life, and interreligious affairs, and the subcommittee for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.
Pope Francis on Nov. 21, 2017, appointed Bishop (now Archbishop) W. Shawn McKnight to succeed Bishop Gaydos as the fourth bishop of Jefferson City.
Bishop Gaydos was relieved to hand over the reins, stating that his lifelong ambition had been simply “to be faithful to my calling from God.”
After Bishop McKnight’s ordination and installation on Feb. 6, 2018, Bishop Gaydos resided in the Cathedral of St. Joseph Rectory in Jefferson City, where he continued offering daily Mass, traveling and keeping up with correspondence.
Bishop Gaydos moved to St. Agnes Home in Kirkwood in July 2024.
“My heart remains in Jefferson City and I pray daily for all the local Church and everyone who is a part of it,” he said at the time.
Upon his 25th anniversary as a bishop in August 2022, Bishop Gaydos asked for prayers “that the Lord will keep me faithful until He calls me home.”
Burial will be in the priests’ section of Resurrection Cemetery in Jefferson City.
