Local Priest Named Baker Bishop
By Ed Langlois
Father Liam Cary, a priest of the Archdiocese of Portland, has been named the new bishop of the Baker Diocese, which covers central and eastern Oregon. Pope Benedict's appointment was announced March 8 in Washington by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States. Bishop-designate Cary, 64, succeeds Bishop Robert Vasa, who was named coadjutor bishop of Santa Rosa, Calif., in January 2011 and took over leadership of the diocese last June. Bishop William Skylstad, retired bishop of Spokane and former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been serving as apostolic administrator in the Diocese of Baker, which has its headquarters in Bend. "For me, the appointment is bittersweet," said Portland Archbishop John Vlazny. "The gain for the Diocese of Baker and the college of bishops is apparent. At the same time, the loss for the clergy and people of the Archdiocese of Portland is significant. As they say, 'the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Lord.'" The archbishop expressed confidence that the new bishop will teach wisely. "From my experience I am confident that Bishop Cary will humbly and lovingly do his part," Archbishop Vlazny said. "He understands that church leadership is a ministry of service." Bishop-designate Cary, now pastor of St. Mary Parish in Eugene, was born in Portland and raised in the central Oregon town of Prineville. He attended high school at Oregon's Mount Angel Seminary in the 1960s and went on to St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif. in 1969. He then took a long hiatus from priestly formation. His work experience between 1970 and 1988 included three years in Chicago as a VISTA volunteer in a legal assistance office. He later spent a summer in Mexico studying Spanish and then worked six months at a clinic sponsored by the United Farm Workers in Salinas, Calif. In the early 1980s he began working with St. Vincent de Paul in Eugene, Ore. When he moved back to Eugene, he was involved at St. Mary Parish, where his desire to become a priest was rekindled when the pastor asked him about it. He attended North American College in Rome 1988-1992 and was ordained in 1992 by then-Archbishop of Portland William Levada, who is now a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Bishop-designate Cary served at St. Joseph Parish in Salem as parochial vicar and was the Archdiocese of Portland's director of vocations and faith formation 1994-1999. In 1998, he was appointed pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in the southern Oregon town of Medford, serving there until 2011, when he was appointed pastor in Eugene. In a 12-year term as pastor in Medford, he came to be seen as a man of principle but also compassion. He supported the opening of a home for needy young mothers as a way to complement pro-life advocacy. Small decisions he made give a sense of his balanced approach. He once asked parishioners to thank musicians and choirs after Mass as opposed to applauding after songs. When lines for the sacrament of reconciliation grew long because of his popularity as a confessor, he gently asked those who come weekly or bi-weekly to keep their confessions brief if possible to make way for those who come less often. When a committee held a dinner mixing new and long-time parishioners, Father Cary thanked them, then urged all members to keep the welcome going long term. In 2001, he stood up publicly when fringe groups in southern Oregon began posting billboards critical of Pope John Paul and the Catholic Church. “This lowers the level of civility, which is the basis of social peace,” he told the Catholic Sentinel, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Portland. “If that same billboard had a statement against Jews, against Blacks, against Hispanics, there would rightly be an outcry against it.” During his tenure in Medford, the parish began perpetual adoration. “People come to me and say this has made a tremendous difference in their lives,” Bishop-designate Cary told the Catholic Sentinel in 2004. “It’s also made a big difference in the life of the parish.” He saw adoration, conducted in silence, as one way to bring spiritual unity among English- and Spanish-speaking parishioners. In 2007, he allowed the parish to put his homilies online. Other Catholic websites soon picked up the videos. With him urging support, his parishioners donated thousands of dollars in 2004 to build a clean water system for a region in Tanzania. Bishop-designate Cary has been a stalwart in the pro-life movement. He would hold Masses in memory of children who died by miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion, describing “an invisible death, an invisible loss, with an invisible grief." Former director of the Archdiocese of Portland's pro-life office, he has in past months been active in opposing construction of a new Planned Parenthood facility in Springfield, near Eugene. In 2004, the Medford parish gathered signatures to help place a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in Oregon. The parish later handed out bumper stickers and yard signs in support of the ban, which the state's voters approved. Not content with only political action, Bishop-designate Cary held forums to discuss church teaching on marriage. Father Cary is the third priest from the Archdiocese of Portland to be named Bishop of the Baker Diocese. Bishop Charles O’Reilly was appointed the first Bishop of Baker in 1903. Bishop Francis Leipzig was appointed the fourth Bishop of Baker in 1950. Like Bishop-designate Cary, he was serving at St. Mary Parish in Eugene at the time of his appointment.
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