Thomas Gumbleton Death Cause – Thomas John Gumbleton (January 26, 1930 – April 4, 2024) was an American social activist and retired Catholic bishop. Gumbleton was an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit from 1968 to 2006. According to Gumbleton, the Vatican forced him to leave as an auxiliary bishop when he publicly backed the adoption of a state legislative law in another diocese without the bishop’s assent. Thomas Gumbleton was born on January 26, 1930, in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Sacred Heart Seminary High School there. He then attended St. John’s Provincial Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan, and the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He received a Bachelor of Arts in 1952, a Master of Divinity in 1956, and a Doctorate of Canon Law in 1964.
Cardinal Edward Mooney ordained Gumbleton as a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit on June 2, 1956, in Rome. Gumbleton became the archdiocese’s vicar general in 1968. On March 4, 1968, Pope Paul VI named Gumbleton as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit and titular bishop of Ululi. Archbishop John Dearden consecrated him on May 1, 1968. Until 2007, Gumbleton served as pastor of many parishes in Detroit, including St. Aloysius, Holy Ghost, and St. Leo’s. During the 1972 presidential election, Gumbleton supported Senator George McGovern for president because he opposed American engagement in the Vietnam War and liberal economic policies. When asked about McGovern’s position on abortion rights, Gumbleton stated that McGovern “would not aid or support the current efforts to liberalize abortion laws.”
Gumbleton created the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights in December 1980, along with former Episcopal Bishop Harry McGehee, Jr. and Rabbi Richard Hertz.The National Catholic Reporter covered Gumbleton’s Sunday homilies at St. Leo’s parish, where he also wrote a regular column. Gumbleton was one of eight protesters detained on May 6, 1987, at the US Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site in Mercury, Nevada. The arrestees were protesting nuclear weapon testing there. Gumbleton was one of 26 protesters detained on June 4, 1999, for blocking the entrance to the White House in Washington, D.C. They were protesting NATO’s bombing operation in Serbia during the Kosovo war. Gumbleton and other protesters were detained on March 27, 2003, for violating a restriction on large protests in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square. The demonstration was in response to the United States’ invasion of Iraq on March 19.