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June 26, 2024By OSV News
WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- Pope Francis has appointed Father Dennis G. Walsh, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Delphos, Ohio, to be bishop of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa.
The appointment was publicized in Washington June 25 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
A native of Lima, Ohio, Bishop-designate Walsh, who turns 59 July 16, is a priest of the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio. He succeeds now-Archbishop Bishop Thomas R. Zinkula of Dubuque, Iowa. After six years as Davenport's shepherd, Bishop Zinzula was named to head the Iowa archdiocese July 26, 2023.
Bishop-designate Walsh will be ordained and installed as the 10th bishop of Davenport Sept. 27 at a time and location to be determined. Father Kenneth Kuntz, who was elected as diocesan administrator last October by the diocesan college of consultors, will remain in that role until the new bishop is installed.
"For the past eight months we have prayed a Diocesan Prayer awaiting a new bishop. In part it prayed for 'a pastor who will please you by his holiness and will show us your watchful care,'" Father Kuntz said in a statement. With the appointment of Bishop-designate Walsh "our prayers have been answered," he added.
Bishop-designate Walsh graduated from St. Alphonsus College, the Redemptorists’ college seminary, in Suffield, Connecticut, with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He professed temporary vows as a Redemptorist in 1986 and final vows in 1991. He did his graduate work in theology at Washington Theological Union in Washington, graduating with a master of divinity degree in 1992.
He was ordained as a Redemptorist priest in 1992 in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. After ordination he was sent to St. Anthony Parish in Guayama, Puerto Rico for six months to learn Spanish. When he returned, he was assigned to St. Michael Parish in Baltimore as a parochial vicar. In 1994, he was transferred to Immaculate Conception in the South Bronx in New York City as a parochial vicar. In 1998, he returned to Ohio for assignment as parochial vicar for St. Mary Parish in Sandusky. In 2000, he was incardinated into the Diocese of Toledo to become a diocesan priest.
He has been pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Delphos and St. John the Baptist parish in Landeck since 2015, and has also served as pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Spencerville since 2016. He also is head of school for St. John the Evangelist Elementary and High School. His previous parish assignments include as pastor of St. John Parish in Defiance (2002-2007); and pastor of St. Patrick of Heatherdowns Parish in Toledo (2007-2015).
Among other diocesan roles, he currently is chairman of the diocese's college of consultors, a member of the board for the Toledo Diocesan Management Corp. and serves on the advisory committee for the Catholic Investment Trust. In previous years, he was a member of the diocese's Catholic Foundation Board and the Priests' Retirement Fund Board, was chairman of the priests' council and was dean of the St. Junipero Serra Deanery.
In his free time, he likes golf and history, loves movies and incorporates them into his homilies and sermons.
The Diocese of Davenport, established in 1881, covers 11,438 square miles in southeastern Iowa and has a Catholic population of over 83,000 out of a total population of about 787,000.