William H. Stetson

Last updated

William H. Stetson was a Roman Catholic priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei ordained in 1962. He was an honorary prelate of the Pope with the title of Reverend Monsignor. He lived in Los Angeles, California.

Stetson was a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, during which time he became a numerary of the Prelature of Opus Dei. He later earned a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. He taught for several years on the faculty of Canon Law at the University of Navarre, where he also was involved in establishing the School of Liberal Arts. For seventeen years, Stetson was the vicar of Opus Dei in Chicago, during which time priests of the Prelature of Opus Dei were entrusted with operating a parish of the Archdiocese of Chicago, St. Mary of the Angels, and renovating one of the archdiocese's largest church buildings.

Stetson was appointed director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC, by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2004. He succeeded C. John McCloskey who had been director since 1998. The operation of the Center has been entrusted to priests of the Prelature of Opus Dei since 1993. In fall of 2007, Stetson left as head of the Catholic Information Center. It is now under the direction of Charles Trullols.

Since 1983 Stetson also served as consultant and later secretary to the Ecclesiastical Delegate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Pastoral Provision [1] for former Episcopal priests, by means of which over a hundred men have been ordained for priestly service in the Roman Catholic Church. He maintained the Pastoral Provision Office at Our Lady of Walsingham parish, an Anglican Use congregation in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston from 2007–2010. He continued to assist at the Holy Cross Chapel [2] in downtown Houston, until being assigned to Los Angeles in 2011 where he assisted at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and performed pastoral work for Opus Dei.

Stetson died in the morning of January 3, 2019. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles</span> Archdiocese in California

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. The archdiocese's cathedra is in Los Angeles, the archdiocese comprises the California counties of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura. The cathedral is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, and its present archbishop is José Horacio Gómez Velasco. With over five million professing members and weekly liturgies celebrated in 32 languages, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is numerically the single largest and most ethnically diverse archdiocese in the United States.

Personal prelature is a canonical structure of the Catholic Church which comprises a prelate, clergy and laity who undertake specific pastoral activities. The first personal prelature is Opus Dei. Personal prelatures, similar to dioceses and military ordinariates, are under the governance of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops. Since 4 August 2022, personal prelatures have instead been governed under the Dicastery for the Clergy. These three types of ecclesiastical structures are composed of lay people served by their own secular clergy and prelate. Unlike dioceses, which cover territories, personal prelatures—like military ordinariates—take charge of persons as regards some objectives regardless of where they live.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglican Use</span> Roman Rite liturgical use of former Anglicans in the Catholic Church

The Anglican Use, also known as Divine Worship, is a use of the Roman Rite celebrated by the personal ordinariates, originally created for former Anglicans who converted to Catholicism while wishing to maintain "aspects of the Anglican patrimony that are of particular value" and includes former Methodist converts to Catholicism who wish to retain aspects of Anglican and Methodist “heritage, liturgy, and tradition. Its most common occurrence is within parishes of the personal ordinariates which were erected in 2009. Upon the promulgation of Divine Worship: The Missal, and the term "Anglican Use" was replaced by "Divine Worship" in the liturgical books and complementary norms, though "Anglican Use" is still used to describe these liturgies as they existed from the papacy of John Paul II to present.

Canon is a Christian title usually used to refer to a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church consists of its bishops, priests, and deacons. In the ecclesiological sense of the term, "hierarchy" strictly means the "holy ordering" of the church, the Body of Christ, so to respect the diversity of gifts and ministries necessary for genuine unity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Horacio Gómez</span> Archbishop of Los Angeles (born 1951)

José Horacio Gómez Velasco is a Mexican-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He became the fifth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in California in 2011. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Denver in Colorado from 2001 to 2004 and as archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Antonio in Texas from 2004 to 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Javier Echevarría Rodríguez</span>

Javier Echevarría Rodríguez was a Spanish bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Until his death, he was the head of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei. He held doctorates in both civil and canon law.

Opus Dei: A Historical Timeline shows the historical development of Opus Dei.

The Pastoral Provision is a set of practices and norms in the Catholic Church in the United States, by which bishops are authorized to provide spiritual care for Catholics converting from the Anglican tradition, by establishing parishes for them and ordaining priests from among them. The provision provides a way for individuals to become priests in territorial dioceses, even after Pope Benedict XVI's Anglicanorum Coetibus proclamation established the Personal Ordinariates, a non-diocesan mechanism for former Anglicans to join the Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priestly Society of the Holy Cross</span> Association of Catholic priests attached to Opus Dei

The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross is an association of Catholic diocesan priests which is integrally united to the Prelature of Opus Dei.

The Rev. Charles John McCloskey III was a Catholic priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei and member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross. He was the former director of the Catholic Information Center of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. He worked on Wall Street at Citibank and Merrill Lynch for a number of years before becoming a priest. He was ordained in 1981 by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray.

In Christianity, the term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or otherwise members of religious life. Secular priests are priests who commit themselves to a certain geographical area and are ordained into the service of the residents of a diocese or equivalent church administrative region. That includes serving the everyday needs of the people in parishes, but their activities are not limited to that of their parish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priesthood in the Catholic Church</span> One of the three ordained holy orders of the Catholic Church

The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms priest refers only to presbyters and pastors. The church's doctrine also sometimes refers to all baptised (lay) members as the "common priesthood", which can be confused with the ministerial priesthood of the consecrated clergy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bishops in the Catholic Church</span> Ordained ministers of the Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and is responsible for teaching doctrine, governing Catholics in his jurisdiction, sanctifying the world and representing the Church. Catholics trace the origins of the office of bishop to the apostles, who it is believed were endowed with a special charism and office by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Catholics believe this special charism and office has been transmitted through an unbroken succession of bishops by the laying on of hands in the sacrament of holy orders.

In the Catholic Church, a parish is a stable community of the faithful within a particular church, whose pastoral care has been entrusted to a parish priest, under the authority of the diocesan bishop. It is the lowest ecclesiastical subdivision in the Catholic episcopal polity, and the primary constituent unit of a diocese or eparchy. Parishes are extant in both the Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches. In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, parishes are constituted under cc. 515–552, entitled "Parishes, Pastors, and Parochial Vicars."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fernando Ocáriz Braña</span> Spanish priest and prelate of Opus Dei

Fernando Ocáriz Braña is a priest of the Catholic Church who has been the prelate of Opus Dei since 2017. Ocáriz is the fourth person to head Opus Dei since its founding in 1928. He is widely published in philosophy and has been a consultor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diocese of Rome</span> Diocese of the Catholic Church in Rome, Italy

The Diocese of Rome, also called the Vicariate of Rome, is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church under the direct jurisdiction of the Pope, who is Bishop of Rome and hence the supreme pontiff and head of the worldwide Catholic Church. As the Holy See, the papacy is a sovereign entity with diplomatic relations, and civil jurisdiction over the Vatican City State located geographically within Rome. The Diocese of Rome is the metropolitan diocese of the province of Rome, an ecclesiastical province in Italy. According to Catholic tradition, the first bishop of Rome was Saint Peter in the first century. The incumbent since 13 March 2013 is Pope Francis.

A personal ordinariate for former Anglicans, shortened as personal ordinariate or Anglican ordinariate, is an ordinariate, a canonical structure within the Catholic Church established in order to enable "groups of Anglicans" and Methodists to join the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their liturgical and spiritual patrimony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter</span> Diocese-like institution of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or personal ordinariate of the Catholic Church for Anglican converts in the United States and Canada. It allows these parishioners to maintain elements of Anglican liturgy and tradition in their services. The ordinariate was established by the Vatican in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham (Houston)</span> Church in Texas, United States

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas, is a Catholic church that serves as the cathedral of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.

References

  1. "The Pastoral Provision | Anglicans Becoming Catholic | Former Anglicans | Anglican Provision - Established in 1980 by Blessed Pope John Paul II". www.pastoralprovision.org.
  2. "Holy Cross Chapel". Holy Cross Chapel.
  3. "Remembering our priests and deacons". Angelus News. Archived from the original on 2019-05-16.