2014-2024: Bishop Doerfler ministry highlights

By Caty Mraz
The U.P. Catholic

Bishop John Doerfler was ordained and installed as the 13th bishop of the Diocese of Marquette on Feb. 11, 2014. He reflects on events that he considers highlights of his time as bishop in the 10 years since.

After being ordained and installed as bishop of the Diocese of Marquette in February of 2014, Bishop John Doerfler had the goal to visit all of the parishes and missions of the diocese. He began the parish visits in May of 2014 with a visit to Holy Name of Mary in Sault Ste. Marie. Visits to all the parishes and missions in the diocese concluded in November of 2016 at St. Jude in White Pine.

In May of 2014, Bishop Doerfler began a series of columns in The U.P. Catholic on the topic of evangelization which ran for nine years and concluded in August of 2023. The column highlighted evangelization alongside the framework that Bishop Doerfler posed on the day of his ordination, “Be a friend of Jesus. Make a friend. Introduce your friend to Jesus.” In September of 2023, he began a new ongoing column series titled “Living the Truth in Love,” taken from Ephesians 4:11-16.

Prior to being assigned to the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, Archbishop Alexander Sample wrote a pastoral letter highlighting a sacred music initiative in the Diocese of Marquette. Bishop Doerfler published instructions on sacred music and worked to develop a diocesan hymnal to further implement the Church’s teaching on sacred music.  The hymnals began to be used across the diocese in Advent of 2018.

On the feast of Pentecost in 2017, he released a pastoral letter on evangelization titled “Transforming Fire: A New Pentecost to form Spirit-Filled Evangelizers.” In the letter, Bishop Doerfler wrote, “The focus of the pastoral plan is for us to allow the Holy Spirit to form each and every one of us into a Spirit-filled evangelizer, like our first bishop, the Venerable Frederic Baraga. Spirit-filled evangelizers are Christians who are transformed by the love of the Holy Spirit and follow the Spirit’s lead to share Jesus with others.”

A noteworthy task in the ministry of a bishop is ordaining men to the priesthood; in the 10 years since his installation, he has ordained 13 men to the priesthood. Additionally, seven men were ordained to the permanent diaconate in January of 2020. The men had been part of the diaconate program that was re-opened under Bishop Doerfler’s oversight after being on hold for a time.

Additionally, Bishop Doerfler was the principal celebrant of a Mass in Sault Ste. Marie that honored the 350th anniversary of the founding of the first mission church in the Diocese of Marquette, the Mission of St. Mary. The mission had been established in 1668 by Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary. The Mass was celebrated on Aug. 3, 2018, in addition to dignitary remarks and presentations. He celebrated the Mass alongside past bishops of the Diocese of Marquette, Archbishop Sample of Portland in Oregon and Bishop Emeritus James Garland.

Bishop Doerfler has on multiple occasions promoted the sainthood cause for Venerable Bishop Frederic Baraga and said that he considers promoting the cause a highlight of his time as bishop. The cause was initially opened in 1952, and he was declared venerable on May 10, 2012. At the Baraga Days held in Sault Ste. Marie on Sept. 8-9, 2023, Bishop Doerfler remarked, “It’s very much important for us to pray not only for the cause but to have that heart that Bishop Baraga had to bring people to Jesus Christ.”

Bishop Doerfler shared that another noteworthy occasion during his time in the diocese since his episcopal ordination and installation was when he opened the cause for canonization for Irving C. ‘Francis’ Houle of Escanaba. It was opened in November of 2018 and the Irving C. ‘Francis’ Houle Association was created afterwards to help promote the cause.

On June 9-10, 2023, the diocese held its Diocesan Eucharistic Congress, “One Thing is Necessary,” as part of the three-year Eucharistic Revival. The idea for the Congress on the diocesan level was posed by Bishop Doerfler. He worked alongside the Diocesan Evangelization Council to plan the event, which he described as the “largest gathering of Catholics from the diocese” in several years.

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