Rockford bishop emeritus Thomas Doran dies

The Rev. Thomas G. Doran, bishop emeritus of the Rockford Diocese, died Thursday at his residence. He was 80.

Those who knew him remember Doran as a tremendous teacher, a strong spiritual leader and administrator, and a compassionate soul with a "wide embrace" for all people.

Doran, who lived in Rockford, was ordained as a priest in 1961 and served as bishop of the diocese from 1994 until his retirement in 2012.

"As a son of Rockford, Bishop Doran loved his home diocese," Bishop David Malloy said in a statement. "From the Mississippi to McHenry County, Bishop Doran knew and loved the parishes and the faithful. He worked tirelessly to strengthen the Catholic faith in northern Illinois by supporting Catholic education, outreach to the poor, the protection of young people and the holiness of the clergy."

The Rockford Diocese extends to the Wisconsin line and includes much of Kane and McHenry counties, plus portions of Lake and DuPage counties.

With a growing suburban Latino population, the diocese under Doran diversified to where now 23 percent of parishioners attending Mass are of Hispanic descent.

"He was very forward thinking in terms of providing staffing, outreach to our Hispanic population," said Monsignor Stephen Knox, 56, pastor of St. Patrick parish in St. Charles. "We have Mass in Spanish every Sunday and a Hispanic ministry and he was instrumental in making that happen. That was very important for him ... just having a very wide embrace for people."

Knox served on the diocese's advisory priest council, which Doran consulted on important matters. Among those was reaching out to Catholics who had drifted away from the church.

"There are fewer Catholics going to Mass ... that was always a major concern for him," Knox said.

Doran launched the Catholics Come Home outreach to bring those lost faithful back to the church.

"He did a lot of excellent things to strengthen the church in our region," Knox said. "He was a good, strong leader."

Doran, who was born Feb. 20, 1936, in Rockford, completed his classical and philosophical studies at St. Pius X Seminary at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1958. In 1961, he was ordained a priest in the Basilica of St. Peter and completed studies and was awarded a Licentiate in Sacred Theology in 1962. He returned to the Rockford Diocese and was assigned assistant pastor at St. Joseph parish in Elgin, and taught religion at St. Edward Central Catholic High School from 1962 to 1963.

"As a parish priest ministering to souls, as a high school teacher forming the minds and consciences of young people and as an assistant to Bishop Loras T. Lane, Bishop Doran combined his formidable intellectual gifts with his faith and love for the church," Malloy said.

In 1984, Doran was appointed rector of the Cathedral of St. Peter, also continuing as chancellor until he was appointed prelate auditor of the Roman Rota in 1986 by the late Pope John Paul II and elevated to the title of monsignor. He served the Holy See until his appointment as the eighth bishop of the Rockford Diocese in 1994 by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.

"He had a great love of the church and a tremendous mind for knowledge," said Rev. Richard Rosinski, 53, pastor of St. Thomas More parish in Elgin, who knew Doran when he was a monsignor. "I have served in the diocese throughout the 18 years he was our spiritual leader. He was a tremendous teacher, in knowledge, but also in experience, and he was never afraid to share that. He brought a tremendous sense of continuity to the universal church. He was a very good administrator of the diocese."

Doran served on many administrative committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and on various boards, including the Catholic University of America, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, the Illinois Catholic Health Association, the National Rural Life Conference and Catholics United for the Faith.

Per Canon Law, Doran resigned in 2011 at age 75 and retired upon the appointment of a new bishop March 20, 2012.

Doran is survived by his sister, Susanne Doran.

Services will be held at the Cathedral of St. Peter, 1243 N. Church St., Rockford. Public viewing is 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday, and 9 to 10:30 a.m. Sept. 9. The funeral Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Malloy and priests of the diocese at 11 a.m. Sept. 9. Burial will be at Calvary Cemetery in Winnebago, Illinois.

The funeral Mass will be live-streamed at rockforddiocese.org.