Thomas Gumbleton, Detroit Catholic bishop who opposed war, promoted social justice, dies at 94

Retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a voice that advocated for peaceful political causes, died Thursday at 94, the Archdiocese of Detroit announced.

"Bishop Gumbleton was a faithful son of the Archdiocese of Detroit, loved and respected by his brother priests and the laity for his integrity and devotion to the people he served," said Archbishop of Detroit Allen Vigneron in a news release. "We in the Archdiocese join his family and friends in praying for the repose of his soul and asking God to grant him the reward of his labors."

A cause of death was not released. He died in his apartment on Grand River in downtown Detroit.

Gumbleton became a national religious figure in the 1960s when he was urged by activist priests to oppose the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. He was a founding leader of Pax Christi USA, an American Catholic peace movement.

“Our participation in it is gravely immoral,” Gumbleton said of the war, writing in The New York Times. “When Jesus faced his captors, He told Peter to put away his sword. It seems to me He is saying the same thing to the people of the United States in 1971.”

His activism

Gumbleton said if he were a young man drafted into U.S. military service at that time he would go to jail or even leave the country if turned down as a conscientious objector.

His opinions led to hate mail from people who said he was giving comfort to cowards, authors Frank Fromherz and Suzanne Sattler wrote in “No Guilty Bystander,” a 2023 book about Gumbleton.

“The war had become a personal turning point,” they wrote.

The archdiocese said he spoke out against war and met victims of violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Colombia, Haiti and Peru.

Gumbleton's activism sometimes led to his arrest at protests in Washington and elsewhere. He was taken away in 1996 while supporting striking newspaper workers in Detroit.

“Bishop Gumbleton took the gospel to heart and lived it day in and day out. He preferred to speak the truth and to be on the side of the marginalized than to toe any party line and climb the ecclesiastical ladder," Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, said Thursday.

Gumbleton retired from active ministry in 2006, the archdiocese said.

He was ordained a priest in 1956 and promoted to auxiliary bishop in 1968. He worked at numerous parishes but was best known for 20-plus years of leadership at St. Leo in Detroit, which had a large Black congregation.

A newspaper, National Catholic Reporter, regularly published his sermons in a column called “The Peace Pulpit.”

In 2006, Gumbleton spoke in favor of legislation in Colorado and Ohio to give sexual abuse victims more time to file lawsuits. He disclosed that he was inappropriately touched by a priest decades earlier.

Gumbleton in 2021 joined a Catholic cardinal and a group of other bishops in expressing public support for LGBTQ+ youth and denouncing the bullying often directed at them.

In the preface to “No Guilty Bystander,” Gumbleton urged readers to be publicly engaged by defending democracy, supporting LGBTQ+ rights or choosing another cause.

“Lest all of this seems overwhelming,” he wrote, “the important thing is to recognize that each of us has a small part to play in the whole picture.”

Gumbleton, a Detroit native, was born Jan. 26, 1930, as the fifth of nine children of Vincent and Helen (Steintrager) Gumbleton. He grew up in Epiphany Parish on Detroit’s west side, Detroit Catholic reported.

After he was ordained on June 2, 1956, he served as pastor of numerous parishes; most notably, St. Leo Parish in Detroit between 1983 and 2007, the Archdiocese of Detroit said. He retired in 2006 but continued serving as administrator of St. Leo.

Pope Paul VI appointed him the 10th auxiliary bishop of Detroit on March 8, 1968. Gumbleton was consecrated on May 1, at that time the youngest bishop in the country.

The Archdiocese of Detroit described Bishop Gumbleton as a "champion of social justice causes."

Funeral arrangements will be announced at a later date.

The Associated Press and Detroit News Staff Writer Jakkar Aimery contributed.