Bishop to celebrate 10 years in Diocese of Dodge City

A priest whose childhood photos include a snapshot of him as a pre-schooler clad in a cowboy suit became the fifth bishop of “the liveliest diocese in the West” in Dodge City 10 years ago.
    Bishop Ronald M. Gilmore will celebrate his decade as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City and its 49 parishes with two special Masses July 13 and 20.
    The bishop, who also will mark the 10th anniversary of his Episcopal ordination, will celebrate anniversary Masses in English at 10 a.m. July 13 and at noon in Spanish on July 20 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Both Masses will be open to the public.
    Receptions will follow both Masses, and an invitation-only anniversary dinner will take place July 16 at Hoover Pavilion in Dodge City.
    Several bishops from across the state are expected to attend the anniversary celebration, including Bishop Michael O. Jackels of the Diocese of Wichita; Eugene J. Gerber, retired bishop of Wichita; and George K. Fitzsimons, retired bishop of the Diocese of Salina.

'The liveliest diocese'
    “Welcome to the Diocese of Dodge City, the liveliest diocese in the West!” Bishop Marion F. Forst wrote to Gilmore at the time of his ordination and installation as bishop on July 16, 1998.
    Forst knew what he was talking about. He was installed as the second bishop of the Diocese of Dodge City on April 5, 1960, at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Dodge City and represented the diocese at all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome. He later became auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.
    As Forst was among the bishops who helped “open wide the doors of the church” at Vatican II, Gilmore is noted on a national scale for his work for the past three years as president of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference of U.S. bishops.
    Gilmore was a member of the U.S. Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Agricultural Issues that developed the statement "For I Was Hungry and You Gave Me Food: Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers and Farmworkers," adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2003.
    He also is known for his dedication to the rights and dignity of immigrants to this country.
    A native of Kansas, Gilmore, 66, was born in Pittsburg and attended Conception Seminary in Conception, Mo., from 1960 to 1962. Before his ordination as a priest, he worked in the Cuban Refugee Program of Catholic Social Service in Wichita from 1962 to 1963. 
    His experiences with Cuban refugees had a profound effect on the young seminarian that would enhance his ministry to other refugees — from Mexico and Latin America — in Dodge City 45 years later.
    Speaking of those refugees, he said, “They remind us that our faith is a coat of many colors, of many cultures, of many habits; they remind us of what a rich and variegated family we are.”
    Gilmore may have dressed as a cowboy in his youth, but even then he was putting away the things of childhood and becoming aware of the problems of other races.
    “I remember as a child finding something poignant in those old photographs from World War II, the photographs of the refugees, the long, struggling lines in China, Asia, Europe, or North Africa,” Gilmore said in a 1998 interview with the Southwest Kansas Register diocesan newspaper. “Ours has been such a bloody time, and those are the sad lines of our century. I had special sensitivity, therefore, to the young Cuban refugees who came to the diocese in the early 1960s, the first permitted out of Castro’s Cuba. 
    “It has been fascinating to watch them grow and develop over the last 30 years, to see them filling so many responsible positions in our communities,” he said. “And I have no doubt the same thing will be true with the many, many Hispanic women and men who are now coming into our two dioceses.”

Serving the church
    Following his ordination to the priesthood by Bishop David M. Maloney on June 7, 1969, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Gilmore served several parishes. He was appointed chancellor of the Diocese of Wichita in 1983 and as vicar general and moderator of the curia for the diocese in 1988.
    An intellectual whose passion is reading and whose coat of arms bears the words “Be Still and Know,” Gilmore is beloved by his priests and people for his outgoing warmth, compassion and deep spirituality.
    “He has provided us with solid spiritual leadership,” said the Rev. Ted A. Skalsky, who has served the Dodge City diocese for 11 years as pastor of the old Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and the new Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
    “The bishop is a very quiet, reflective man,” Skalsky added. “When he speaks, you know that he has thought. I think that is the real strength he has brought to the diocese.
    "That has been his gift to us. He ponders things before he does anything. His gift is his writing, which is profound — and sometimes very humorous. He is a very spiritual person.”