By JOSEPH DUERR, Record Editor

Bishop Charles G. Maloney, who died April 30 at age 93 at Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, was Louisville’s own — and one of a kind.

He was born in Louisville, went to elementary school here and served the church in the Archdiocese of Louisville for 51 years as a bishop and 17 years before that as a priest. It was a ministry that spanned 68-plus years and touched the lives of tens of thousands of people.

The length of his service can be measured in different ways:

• At his death he was the longest-ordained bishop in the United States.

• He was a bishop for about one-fourth of the 198-year history of the Archdiocese of Louisville, which was formed in Bardstown in 1808.

• He served as a bishop in the Louisville archdiocese longer than anyone else. The closest was Archbishop John A. Floresh, who headed the diocese for 43 years.

• He was the archdiocese’s only auxiliary bishop, and he served with all three of the archdiocese’s archbishops: Archbishop Floresh (1955-1967), Archbishop Thomas J. McDonough (1967-1981) and Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly, who has been archbishop here since 1982.

• His years as bishop spanned the pastorates of six popes: Pius XII (who appointed him auxiliary bishop), Blessed John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

• He attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and played an active role in council deliberations on religious liberty and Scripture. One council historian called him one of the major American voices at the council in supporting religious liberty.

• He was named in 1995 the first titular bishop of Bardstown, Ky., when it was re-established as a titular diocese. A titular diocese is a former diocese that that no longer physically or geographically exists.

Bishop Maloney officially retired as auxiliary bishop in 1988, when he reached age 75, but he remained active in ministry as auxiliary bishop emeritus until recent years. He lived at the Little Sisters of the Poor St. Joseph Home for the Aged in Louisville for about the past three years.

When he celebrated his 50th year as a bishop in 2005, he acknowledged in an interview that was “unusual” for someone to be a bishop that long. “I thank God for the ministry I’ve had,” he said.

Charles Garrett Maloney was born Sept. 9, 1912, in Louisville to David and Imelda Shea Maloney. He was the second oldest of 12 children — five of whom are still living (brothers Bernard J., John P. and Thomas S. Maloney and sisters Mary M. Zena and Martha A. Maloney).

He attended St. James elementary school and went to St. Joseph in Rensselaer, Ind., for high school and junior college. He completed his studies for the priesthood at North American College in Rome and was ordained to the priesthood in Rome on Dec. 8, 1937 — two days before the Louisville diocese became an archdiocese.

Returning to Louisville, he served as chaplain at St. Thomas Orphanage from 1938-39, associate pastor at St. Frances of Rome Church from 1939-40 and chaplain at St. Joseph Infirmary from 1942-46. He received a degree in canon law from The Catholic University of America in 1942 after two years of study in Washington, D.C.

Bishop Maloney began his long tenure serving at the Chancery, the headquarters of the archdiocese, in 1946. He was secretary to Archbishop Floersh, assistant chancellor, chancellor and vicar general before being named auxiliary bishop in December 1954. He was consecrated a bishop on Feb. 2, 1955, at the Cathedral of the Assumption.

He recalled being named bishop in a 1980 interview with The Record.

“I was frightened beyond description when I received the letter” of appointment from Pope Pius XII, he said. “For some hours (after receiving the letter) I practically lost my power of concentration.”

He noted that at the time “there was no expectation that Louisville would have an auxiliary bishop.”

Bishop Maloney said in several interviews over the years that he was content being an auxiliary bishop and remaining in Louisville rather than being an Ordinary, or head of a diocese.

“I’m happy to stay at home,” he said in 1980. “I always had the feeling that I was able to do more here than elsewhere — able to do more in the position I was in than if moved elsewhere. I felt I was worth more to the church staying here than moving away.”

He added several years later: “I’ve been left here where I know the place. I’ve been blessed to be left here. Bishops of other temperaments may be more energetic (and) may want to take a diocese. I’ve been happy here — all the way through.”

Bishop Maloney also said he thought he was able to provide continuity, or a “bridge,” between the pastorates of the three archbishops of Louisville. Having lived and worked in Louisville during the “great expansion” of the church in the post-World War II era and having a “good grasp of the past,” he said, he was able to provide this perspective when new archbishops were named.

And he said he had good working relationships with all three archbishops.

“I haven’t had any trouble with any of them,” he said in 1987. But then, in his characteristic dry wit and deep laughter, he added, “How much trouble they have had with me is another matter.”

Bishop Maloney had only been a bishop for about six years when Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council. And he was one of about 2,000 of the world’s bishops who participated in all four council sessions in Rome.

He took an active part in the council and gave an oral presentation on one of the key subjects: religious liberty. He said it had become clear that, due to opposition, the religious liberty document would have failed unless it was pushed by the U.S. bishops.

Bishop Maloney said he had suggested that one American bishop make a presentation on the issue. This bishop replied to him, “Well, you know Latin; you do it.”

And he did so at a session in the autumn of 1965.

Those opposed to the religious liberty document contended that “error has no rights,” Bishop Maloney recalled in a 1987 interview. “As I sat in the hall waiting to be called (to speak), the thought came to me that if this (objection) is valid, then some of the bishops here didn’t have any right to speak, because they have contradicted each other. ... If error has no rights, how could they speak?”

The central question, as Bishop Maloney viewed it, was that “people have rights.” This is what he emphasized in his talk, and this is what he considered the essence of the document, which the council later approved.

He also addressed another question: Scripture. He was among council members favoring the use of modern research in interpreting the Scriptures.

About Vatican II, Bishop Maloney, in another interview, explained what the council did and what it did not do regarding church renewal.

“The council did not change the doctrines of the church,” he said. “The role of the council was to find new insights which would give modern man a better understanding of the church and provide greater attraction for it.”

He said in a 1995 interview that the challenge facing the church now is to “try to represent the Christian faith, the Catholic faith, in a manner people will see it, understand it and accept it.”

Some contend that “the perception is what counts,” he added. “But unless the substance is there, the perception is not worth anything. We’ve got the substance, and the perception sometimes gives us trouble.”

One of Bishop Maloney’s contributions to the local church was his expertise in areas of finance and administration. He said he enjoyed working on business matters and tending to such details. “It’s within my grasp,” he said, noting an understanding of business he got while working with his father’s wholesale poultry business as a young man.

“One of my favorite sayings is: I don’t mind doing paperwork because every paper is a person,” he said. “You’re not dealing with paper; you’re dealing with persons, whether you do it face-to-face, by letters or by telephone.”

He noted on another occasion: “My ideal is to preach the Gospel by being available to help people and by being responsible and dependable in dealing with them. My role would be one of collaboration.”

Bishop Maloney preached the Gospel in other ways, too. For a number of years he celebrated Sunday Mass at St. Mary Magdalen Church, located next to the Chancery. And confirmations took him to parishes throughout the archdiocese.

He confirmed tens of thousands of men, women and children. He estimated in 1995 that he had confirmed more than 85,000. It was not unusual for him to have confirmed both parents and their children, and he sometimes encountered instances in which he confirmed three generations in a family.

“I think I did all of them (confirmations) for a while” when Archbishop Floersh was archbishop, he recalled. He said he shared parish confirmations with Archbishops McDonough and Kelly and was still doing confirmations up until several years ago.

He said he took “great satisfaction” in confirmations because it is the “sacrament of the Holy Sprit ... an important thing in the life of every Catholic.” Plus, he noted, “you meet a lot of people,” and it’s a “good way of keeping in touch” with them.

Bishop Maloney also spoke often of the importance of two other sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist.

He described his baptism as the “most important” day of his life because “that’s the day I was snatched from the fires of darkness,” when he became a Christian, “a child of God, an heir of heaven.”

“The day I was made a bishop was a very important day in my life, and the day I became a priest was even more wonderful,” he said. “But the most important day in my life was the day of my baptism.”

He referred to the daily celebration of Mass as “half my day,” because “what I do through the day is motivated” by that.

He explained in 1980 when he celebrated his 25th anniversary as a bishop:

“Jesus in the Mass motivates me to carry out my role of service to all who call upon me. All the service in the world is hollow and lifeless unless it proceeds from prayer and leads back to prayer. My duty is to serve but to pray first.”

Bishop Maloney considered the priesthood the center of his life. “It is the one thing toward which my life has been directed since I was in the eighth grade, at least, maybe the seventh (grade),” he once said.

He explained: “To me, the priesthood is unintelligible except coming from the Eucharist.
That is the heart and center of it. That’s the all-important thing. The social dimensions of the Gospel flow from that, are motivated by that.”

Bishop Maloney also witnessed to the Gospel by serving the poor. He helped countless people in need who came to the Chancery door asking for him in the many years that he lived there.

Archbishop Kelly noted this when Bishop Maloney celebrated his 50 years as a bishop in February 2005 at the Little Sisters of the Poor. “He saw Christ in each one of them” who came for help, and he taught us to do the same, the archbishop said.

Bishop Maloney was not one who found it easy talking about himself. He was more comfortable talking about things important in his life. And one consistent subject was the virtue of humility.

Why humility?

“That’s the soil in which other virtues grow,” he said. “Humility is really just the truth — the truth about oneself and the truth about others.”

He made humility a major point in a homily he gave in 1980 when he was 25 years a bishop.

“Pride and vanity really do stultify us and, what is worse, they bring us into continuing conflict with the people around us,” he said. “Once we give God credit for our talents, we can then say in truth with St. Paul: ‘I can do all things in him who strengthens me.’ ”

He added in words that reflected the kind of person he was: “I seek no praise. No less than you I accept the words of the Lord: ‘When you have done all you have been commanded to do, say, we are useless servants. We have done no more than our duty.’ ”

Bishop Maloney’s ministry changed when he began living at St. Joseph Home for the Aged about three years ago. But his ministry did not end.

“Just a ministry of presence is enough,” he said in an interview last year. “I find being among them (residents of the home) is a ministry.” He celebrated Mass daily, he said, and on occasions heard confessions and administered the Sacrament of Anointing.

Asked in that interview if he had any message for the people of the archdiocese after being a bishop for half a century, he replied: “Love God, and love your neighbor.”