From staff reports
An Oil City native is retiring from his position as vicar general with the Erie Catholic Diocese.
Msgr. Robert J. Smith, JCL, a native of St. Joseph Parish in Oil City, has served in diocesan administration for 40 years, including the past 27 as vicar general, which is the highest official of a diocese after the bishop.
Smith will continue in his roles as director of clergy personnel and chair of the diocese’s priest personnel board. He also will remain on the diocese’s administrative cabinet.
The Most Rev. Lawrence T. Persico, bishop of the diocese, accepted Smith’s request to retire as vicar general and appointed Msgr. Edward M. Lohse, JCD, to assume those duties. Lohse will also be the moderator of Curia for the diocese and will take over responsibility for the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth, a position Smith had held since the formation of the office in 2001.
The appointments take effect March 13.
Smith was ordained to the priesthood in May 1970, and his administrative positions before becoming vicar general included secretary to the bishop, vice chancellor, chancellor, dean of the Erie Central Deanery and vicar of the diocese’s Northern Vicariate.
Smith has also served as a director of the priest retirement residence, and he had been the director of the diocese’s permanent diaconate formation program since its inception in 1994.
In 1991, he was conferred a papal honor known as the Prelate of Honor. And in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI named him Protonotary Apostolic Supernumerary, which is the highest rank of monsignor.
“The Diocese of Erie and I personally owe a great debt of gratitude to Monsignor Smith for his competent, loyal and dedicated service to this local church,” Persico said in a letter announcing the changes.
“He was of great assistance to me from the moment of my arrival in Erie as he helped me in the transition,” Persico added. “His canonical skills, pastoral sensitivity and his knowledge of the history of the Diocese of Erie have helped me immensely.”
In a meeting the bishop called to share the personnel changes with members of the cabinet and the Chancery (the bishop’s staff members), Smith expressed his admiration and gratitude for each of the four bishops under whom he served. They are the late Bishop Alfred Watson, the late Bishop Michael Murphy, Bishop Emeritus Donald Trautman and Persico.
Smith, son of the late Arthur L. and Mary Coogan Smith, graduated in 1961 from St. Joseph High School in Oil City. He completed seminary studies at St. Mary Seminary and University in Baltimore.
He served at a parish in Kane and two parishes in Erie before joining the diocese’s administrative staff in 1976.
Lohse has served the diocese in a number of positions including director of vocations, vice chancellor and chancellor. In 2010, he began a five-year term with the Congregation of Clergy at the Vatican.
During his time in Rome, he also earned his doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University, which has since published his dissertation.
Upon his return to the diocese, Lohse was appointed episcopal vicar for canonical services, and has worked on a number of projects, including pastoral planning.
“These changes are significant, both for the life of the diocese and in the lives of the individuals involved,” Persico said in his letter.
Parishes across the diocese experienced significant change the weekend of Feb. 18-19 with the implementation of restructuring announced as a result of pastoral planning.
More than half of the approximate 58,000 households registered in parishes were affected by either a new parish merger, a new parish partnership or a new pastor. Earlier this year, about half the 120 active priests in the diocese received a new parish assignment or a reassignment to their current parish.
