March 27, 1992 Supplement to The Steubenville Res Juster 1 1 Introducing Bishop-Sheldon

Q From page 9 of real danger and rugged, even primi- come away from those evenings with a tives living situations with the mission- sincere respect for these men who were aries he visited in each place. so thoroughly human. They generally were While he was in the Mission Office, filled with wit and a self-effacing sense Gil's basic outlook on life grew at an of humor that was terribly important for amazing pace. During these years I would young priests to encounter. visit Gil once or twice a week (when he Eighteen years later, when Gil was was not off to some far corner of the ordained a bishop, Cardinal John Dearden world); we would have dinner and take a was the first bishop in the sanctuary to five mile walk around the Magnificat cam- impose hands on Gil's head. pus. Often, he would talk at length about While he was stationed at St Clare, the way he found "church" in the mis- Gil began taking flying lessons on his sions. As the years passed, there could be no doubt about his single-minded admiration of the missionaries he had visited and his total commitment to pro- vide them with the resources of his of- fice. Early on in his work at the Mission Office, Bishop John Whealon, then Aux- 1965: First visit to diocesan mission In El Salvador as diocesan director. iliary Bishop of Cleveland, gave Gil re- Sheldon is extreme left. Father James Moloney, Detroit mission director, is sponsibility for a totally new diocesan at center. involvement in the mission of the Church. Pope John XXIII had urged the bishops of the world whose dioceses were finan- cially capable to twin with one of the smaller and poorer dioceses of the Third World. Maryknoll Bishop Comber sug- gested to Bishop Whealon that the Dio- cese of San Miguel in El Salvador was just such a place. Gil went to El Salvador first to visit the bishop of San Miguel and see for himself the parish the bishop had chosen 1968: Father Sheldon with Ma- for the Cleveland mission, St. Charles ryknoll Father Allen Goebel on visit Parish in La Union. St. Charles had had to Philippines' Mindanao Island. no resident priest since 1782. Upon his return, the Cleveland Mission Office asked day off at a small airport near the parish. for volunteer priests, religious women and Gil had been an Air Corps aviation ca- laity to begin a Cleveland diocesan mis- det during the two years after his gradu- sion in El Salvador. ation from Cathedral Latin High School, The courage and commitment of the but he mustered out of the service as first Cleveland Mission Team created the soon as the war ended. He promptly en- environment in which more than 45 rolled at John Carroll University as one priests, religious women and lay mission- of the first servicemen to take advantage Q To page 15 1978: In the Holy Land, on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. of the G.I. Bill of Rights, where Gil re- mained until he entered St. Mary Semi- nary in 1947. With his service experi- ence and his flying lessons, Gil amassed enough flying time to become qualified to pilot a small plane as long as a fully licensed pilot was also present. In June, 1963, Gil completed his term at St. Clare and was transferred to Sts. Philip and James Parish on Cleveland's west side. However, he was there only a little more than a year when he was ap- pointed diocesan director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. He was also assigned to be resident chaplain at Magnificat High School, a relatively new school with over 1,000 students. Gil and I took a long ride the after- noon he received the appointment. At one point in the conversation, I recall Gil said something to the effect that he could not understand why he had been chosen to run the Mission Office. Then he added, "But when I'm through, I will be able to say I have visited most of the major missions throughout the world and will know the missions from first-hand experience." For the next 10 years he became the most widely travelled priest I have ever known. Gil was in Africa several times, in Central and South America often, in Alaska and the Far East. All of these 1989: With past and present members of the Cleveland Mission Team at the site of the 1980 murder of four journeys carried with them an element missionary women. - -