By Gretchen Keiser

Washington, D.C. – “Bishop, bishop,” a little boy called out, running up to the car as soon as the door opened and Bishop Eugene A. Marino stepped out. “My sister wants to know if you’re still going to confirm her.”

“No, I’ll be in Atlanta by then,” the bishop said after checking the date. The children flanking him as he entered St. Gabriel’s Church, where he once was pastor and where he lived for seven years as an auxiliary bishop, were just the youngest struggling to let go.

While rejoicing for him, Josephite colleagues, coworkers and Washington and Maryland parishioners spoke of having to reconcile themselves to the moving on of a bishop who has been a close and beloved friend.

“He is well-respected and loved here in the district,” said A.D. Carroll, a black lay leader at St. Gabriel’s who has known the bishop since 1974 when he became a pastor.

“I say this in all fairness, regardless of color,” Mr. Carroll said. “Atlanta is really going to be enriched with this man coming on board…He is interested in youth, easy to talk to…that warmth of listening ability. In all we are going to miss him tremendously in the Washington metropolitan area.”

This Sunday morning, April 10, the bishop said his day began with a very early morning walk in Potomac Park, instead of his customary jogging, which, with his prayer, makes up a daily morning discipline.

For those accompanying him, the day began with the advice that when traveling with the bishop it is best to be ready to move quickly.

“I usually hear his footsteps coming down the hall and then ‘hello’ as he goes by,” said Father Charles McMahon, S.S.J., whose office is next to Bishop Marino’s at the Josephites’ Washington seminary.

By 10:30 a.m. he came down the hall, greeting people with warmth despite the fullness of the day that lay ahead. Father Godfrey Mosely, his master of ceremonies, would also be keeping him on schedule in the crush of people reluctant to let the bishop go.

Sunday Mass at St. Gabriel’s, an urban parish, was a chance for his former parishioners to celebrate the appointment and say farewell. The bishop was also formally installing their pastor. “They say if you want something done, ask a busy man,” remarked Father Patrick J. McCaffrey, expressing the gratitude of the parish for the bishop’s presence.

In his homily, Bishop Marino emphasized the link between the bishop and his priests, between the priest and his people. In the Catholic Church, he said, “we don’t come (to serve) as a result of the call of the people. We don’t come because we are hired or elected…”

“We are members of a Church that believes that the power of Jesus Christ is present in that Church…the power of Jesus Christ to call and to send.”

“Those of us who are called to serve as ministers in the Church know that we are called by Christ,” he said. “That is what gives us the courage to serve.”

The pastor is sent by the bishop to share in that ministry, “to teach, to preach, to celebrate the Eucharist with the people.” Because of that link between the bishop and the priest, he said, in a sense the bishop is present whenever the Eucharist is celebrated in his diocese. He recalled the parish history and urged the parishioners to remember “that we stand in continuity with our past.” He asked for their prayers for him.

The warmth expressed during the Mass flowed over into a crowded reception in the parish hall. Juggling a paper plate with a few chicken wings and cookies for the bishop, Father Mosley tried to shepherd him toward the door from the fringes of a phalanx of people wanting to say a word or two in person. Laying a hand upon a head of a child, stopping to speak intently or pray silently with one person after another, Bishop Marino moved through the group. At his farewell Mass scheduled for May 1 at Washington’s Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, he would stand outside and say goodbye until the last person had gone home he reassured them.

The parking lot was the setting for one or two last encounters. Then Father Mosley slipped behind the wheel, putting the plate of food safely on the floor in the back seat. “I always like it when we go in a cloud of dust and a hearty heigh-ho silver,” the bishop remarked as the car pulled away on a dash toward Bowie, Maryland, 45 minutes away.

Speaking softly, he obliged a request to describe his home state of Mississippi, his native Biloxi. The dialogue was interrupted by questions about Georgia, comparisons between the landscape that changed from urban Washington to rural Maryland, and the rural sections of his future archdiocese. He reflected upon the growth of the Atlanta area and its separation from the older, mother diocese of Savannah.

At Sacred Heart parish in Bowie, as soon as the car door opened, and the pastor, Father John Hogan, had greeted him, the bishop pointed out an historic chapel overlooking the modern church, where, in 1789, Bishop John Carroll was chosen the first bishop in the United States.

The parish of 1,200 families had 41 Confirmation candidates that day, prepared by Sister M. John Helene, O.S.F. and a corps of catechists. The bishop lauded the “outstanding program of religious education,” with the “incredible” level of participation and attendance by young people developed over many years of effort.

“I hope that when I go to Atlanta I will learn something from Sister Mary John,” he said in his homily. “I mean that from my heart.”

Standing a few feet from the front pews, the bishop spoke extemporaneously to the Confirmation candidates for 15 or 20 minutes, gesturing, joking with them, and exhorting them.

“God gives you the gift of the Holy Spirit,” he said, “the same Holy Spirit he poured out on His apostles at Pentecost.”

“He never said it was going to be easy…What He said was it was worthwhile. What He said was we could do it. He would send the Holy Spirit so we could do through Him what we cannot do ourselves.”

“Today Jesus keeps His promise to you. The Holy Spirit will walk with you for the rest of your life and into eternity. He will give you the strength to do whatever you have to do. Today we rejoice with you and pray for you.”

At the closing of the Mass, Father Hogan told the people, “We really know what a tremendous human being this bishop is. We love this guy. It’s going to be tough for us to lose him.” The standing ovation that followed settled down and Bishop Marino responded. “You’ve given me so much and I want to go to the people of north Georgia and share a little bit of the love and cooperation you’ve shown me. You will always be in my heart and my prayers. I hope you’ll pray for me.”

Outside there was time for each candidate who asked to have a picture taken with the bishop, time for the reception that followed and time, at the bishop’s suggestion, to drive up the hill and visit the 200-year-old chapel that is a significant part of Catholic Church history.

When Bishop Marino comes to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation, “everyone relaxes,” said Sister Mary John at the reception. A Franciscan sister from County Limerick South who will celebrate her golden jubilee next year, Sister Mary John said that she had known him since the middle 1970s when she was a Catholic high school principal in Baltimore.

“Your gain is our loss,” she said, adding that the archdiocese of Washington had to willingly “share him” after having his presence for many years.

The Atlanta archdiocese’s many Irish priests “will love him to death,” she said. “I’ll be down there on horseback if they don’t.”

“He makes everybody at ease,” she said. “You have me crying now. We’re really going to miss him.”