Pope Fran­cis names Greens­burg Bish­op Edward C. Malesic as 12^th bish­op of Cleveland

Bish­op Edward C. Malesic, bish­op of Greens­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia will be intro­duced at a press con­fer­ence at 10 a.m. today as the 12^th bish­op of the Catholic Dio­cese of Cleve­land. The press con­fer­ence will be livestreamed on the dioce­san web­site.

Bish­op Malesic, who is 59 and has been a priest for 33 years, takes over gov­er­nance of the dio­cese from Arch­bish­op Nel­son Perez, who was named arch­bish­op of Philadel­phia in Feb­ru­ary. The new bishop’s appoint­ment was made by Pope Fran­cis and announced at 6 a.m. local time today by Arch­bish­op Christophe Pierre, apos­tolic nun­cio to the Unit­ed States, in Wash­ing­ton D.C.

Father Don Olek­si­ak will con­tin­ue serv­ing as dioce­san admin­is­tra­tor until Bish­op-des­ig­nate Malesic’s instal­la­tion on Sept. 14 dur­ing a Mass in the Cathe­dral of St. John the Evan­ge­list in down­town Cleveland.

The Catholic Dio­cese of Cleve­land com­pris­es 3,414 square miles and includes eight coun­ties in the north-cen­tral part of Ohio. It has a total pop­u­la­tion of 2,774,113 peo­ple, of which 682,948 or 24% are Catholic.

Pope Fran­cis named Bish­op Malesic as the fifth bish­op of Greens­burg, which is in South­west Penn­syl­va­nia, on April 24, 2015. His epis­co­pal ordi­na­tion and instal­la­tion took place on July 13, 2015 at Blessed Sacra­ment Cathe­dral in Greensburg.

Bish­op Malesic was born to Joseph A. and the late Eliz­a­beth Schatt Malesic on Aug. 14, 1960 in Har­ris­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia. One of four chil­dren, he was raised in Enhaut, which adjoins the fac­to­ry town of Steel­ton, near Har­ris­burg. His broth­er, Robert, and his wife, Con­stance, live in Hum­mel­stown, Penn­syl­va­nia. The bishop’s 102-year-old father, who remains quite active, lives near Her­shey, Penn­syl­va­nia. His oth­er two sib­lings, Joseph Jr. and Mar­garet R. Malesic, are deceased.

The bish­op is of Ger­man descent on his mother’s side; his father is of Sloven­ian descent. Bish­op Malesic received the sacra­ments of ini­ti­a­tion at the for­mer St. John the Evan­ge­list Parish — which was a Ger­man nation­al parish — in Enhaut. He is a 1978 grad­u­ate of Cen­tral Dauphin East High School, Har­ris­burg, and he attend­ed Lebanon Val­ley Col­lege in Annville as a biol­o­gy major for three years pri­or to enter­ing the sem­i­nary in 1981.

Bish­op Malesic earned a bachelor’s degree in phi­los­o­phy in 1983 from the Pon­tif­i­cal Col­lege Josephinum in Colum­bus. He con­tin­ued his the­o­log­i­cal stud­ies there and was award­ed a mas­ter of divin­i­ty degree in 1987.

Bish­op William H. Keel­er, then bish­op of Har­ris­burg, ordained him to the dia­conate on May 24, 1986, and to the priest­hood on May 30, 1987, at St. Patrick Cathe­dral in Harrisburg.

After ordi­na­tion, Bish­op Malesic served in sev­er­al assign­ments in the Dio­cese of Har­ris­burg, includ­ing as assis­tant pas­tor of St. There­sa Parish in New Cum­ber­land, Penn­syl­va­ni­a1987-1989 and assis­tant pas­tor of St. Rose of Lima Parish, York, 1989 – 1992. He also was the Catholic cam­pus min­is­ter at York Col­lege of Penn­syl­va­nia while serv­ing at St. Rose.

Bish­op Malesic was appoint­ed to full-time cam­pus min­istry in 1992 and served four years at Millersville Uni­ver­si­ty. He also was appoint­ed to cam­pus min­istry at Franklin and Mar­shall Col­lege in near­by Lan­cast­er in 1993.

Bish­op Nicholas C. Dat­ti­lo sent him to study canon law at The Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Amer­i­ca in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. in 1986. After earn­ing his licen­ti­ate in canon law in 1998, Bish­op Malesic served sev­er­al years in the Dio­cese of Harrisburg’s Tri­bunal in sev­er­al posi­tions includ­ing audi­tor, adju­tant judi­cial vic­ar and sec­re­tary for canon­i­cal ser­vices. In 2006, he was appoint­ed judi­cial vic­ar, the posi­tion he retained until being named Bish­op of Greens­burg. He is a mem­ber of the Canon Law Soci­ety of America.

Dur­ing his tenure at the tri­bunal, the bish­op lived at St. Mar­garet Mary Parish in Har­ris­burg 1996 – 2000 and at St. Eliz­a­beth Ann Seton Parish in Mechan­ics­burg 2000 – 2004. While liv­ing in Mechan­ics­burg, he also served the spir­i­tu­al needs of stu­dents at Mes­si­ah Col­lege in Dillsburg.

On April 1, 2004, Bish­op Malesic was appoint­ed to Holy Infant Parish in York Haven as admin­is­tra­tor before being named pas­tor on Dec. 22, 2004. He guid­ed the parish for 11 years and over­saw the relo­ca­tion and ini­tial con­struc­tion of a new church and parish cen­ter. The project was com­plet­ed in 2016.

Dur­ing his time in the Har­ris­burg Dio­cese, the bish­op served on sev­er­al boards, com­mit­tees and orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the Con­tin­u­ing For­ma­tion of Cler­gy Com­mit­tee; Sem­i­nar­i­an Review Board; Dioce­san Pres­byter­al Coun­cil; Col­lege of Con­sul­tors; Bishop’s Admin­is­tra­tive Board; and the Youth Pro­tec­tion Com­mit­tee of the Penn­syl­va­nia Catholic Con­fer­ence. He also served on the Board of Hos­pice of Cen­tral Pennsylvania.

As Bish­op of Greens­burg, is a mem­ber of the Board of Gov­er­nors of the PCC. He also serves on the boards of Saint Vin­cent Sem­i­nary and Saint Vin­cent Col­lege (Latrobe), Seton Hill Uni­ver­si­ty (Greens­burg), and is a mem­ber of Chris­t­ian Asso­ciates of South­west Pennsylvania.

Nation­al­ly, Bish­op Malesic serves on two Unit­ed States Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops’ com­mit­tees: the Com­mit­tee on Canon­i­cal Affairs and Church Gov­er­nance and the Sub­com­mit­tee for the Church in Cen­tral and East­ern Europe.

He released his first pas­toral let­ter, A Pas­toral Let­ter on the Drug Abuse Cri­sis: From Death and Despair to Life and Hope,” on June 29, 2017, in response to the opi­oid epi­dem­ic in the region. In it, he called on the peo­ple of the dio­cese to take action against the opi­oid scourge and out­lined dioce­san and parish efforts focused on prayer, edu­ca­tion and coop­er­a­tive actions with social ser­vice agen­cies already engaged in the fight against addiction.

In response to the cler­gy abuse cri­sis and the release of the Penn­syl­va­nia Grand Jury Report and in order to increase dioce­san trans­paren­cy and out­side over­sight, Bish­op Malesic estab­lished a Safe Envi­ron­ment Advi­so­ry Coun­cil to assist the Dio­cese of Greens­burg. The advi­so­ry coun­cil over­saw a series of sev­en lis­ten­ing ses­sions around the dio­cese, each of which was attend­ed by Bish­op Malesic and gave parish­ioners the oppor­tu­ni­ty to express their feel­ings about the grand jury report, make obser­va­tions and offer suggestions.

In Feb­ru­ary 2019, Bish­op Malesic announced details of a Com­pre­hen­sive Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion Ini­tia­tive, which includes a Sur­vivors’ Com­pen­sa­tion Pro­gram, to sup­port sur­vivors of abuse.

On July 1, Bish­op Malesic announced the for­ma­tion of the Saint Pope John Paul II Tuition Oppor­tu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship, which was made pos­si­ble by the sin­gle largest dona­tion from a fam­i­ly the Dio­cese of Greens­burg received in one year. The anony­mous $2.4 mil­lion dona­tion, com­bined with $1.7 mil­lion in exist­ing funds donat­ed by oth­er indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es, make $4.1 mil­lion in schol­ar­ships and tuition assis­tance avail­able for the 12 Catholic schools in the Dio­cese of Greens­burg. The funds are for use in the 2020 – 21 aca­d­e­m­ic year. The announce­ments were made at sep­a­rate media events held at five dif­fer­ent Catholic schools that day.

The Dio­cese of Greens­burg was estab­lished by Pope Pius XII on March 10, 1951. It con­sists of 3,334 square miles in four coun­ties of South­west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia. Total pop­u­la­tion is 641,041, of which 137,641 are Catholic. There are 78 parish­es and 38 parish­es in part­ner con­fig­u­ra­tions in the dio­cese. The cler­gy includes 84 dioce­san priests, 51 of whom are active; 33 retired priests; 13 inter­na­tion­al priests and six per­ma­nent deacons.

Source: dio​ce​se​of​cleve​land​.org