Bishop John F. Whealon

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Before he came to the diocese as the sixth bishop of Erie in 1966, Bishop John Whealon requested a photo of every priest. When he arrived to begin his term as bishop, he had all of their faces and names memorized. Father Pino noted that this bishop was “very practical”—an austere, traditional man with an amazing memory.

Archbishop Gannon was still alive at the time of Bishop Whealon’s appointment as bishop, and Bishop Whealon volunteered to live in the penthouse of St. Mark Seminary while Archbishop Gannon continued to live at the residence. At the penthouse, Bishop Whealon installed a greenhouse—he loved to garden and nurture his plants.

Just two years after moving to Erie from his former post as auxiliary bishop of Cleveland, Bishop Whealon was transferred to the Archdiocese of Hartford in 1968 and remained there for the next 22 years. He died unexpectedly in 1991 from intestinal cancer, just one year after the succeeding bishop and his very good friend, Bishop Alfred Watson, passed away. Bishop Whealon preached at his friend’s funeral, and Father Pino still has the original handwritten homily in the diocesan archives.

“He took. He broke. He saw. He gave,” Bishop Whealon wrote.