Bishop Nicola De Angelis is known everywhere as Bishop Nic. At 75, Bishop Nic plans to do much more than simply retire. In an April 8 letter to the Catholics of Peterborough, De Angelis asks the people to pray for him.
“(I) kindly ask you to pray for me and my ministry as a retired bishop, that I may have the strength to continue to serve the Church wherever my religious community may find need for me,” he wrote.
Enthusiasm has been Bishop Nic’s calling card through 10 years of caring for the ethnic parishes in downtown Toronto as auxiliary bishop and then 12 years as bishop of Peterborough.
He arrived in Peterborough to a diocese facing $14 million of debt and Catholic faithful shaken by a sexual abuse scandal involving Msgr. Martin Wain.
The diocese was trying to care for its growing population of retired priests out of operating revenues — a strategy almost designed to dig it deeper into debt. Vocations were as rare as chicken teeth.
So Bishop Nic went to work. The debt is nearly gone. The new Priest’s Retirement Fund has built up $4 million in investments. There’s a new Family Ministry Office working to support Catholic families. Catholics in a diocese that stretches from Lake Ontario north to Lake Nipissing are now connected to each other through a news magazine called The Catholic Herald. The new Vocation, Evangelization and Youth Office has managed to kindle a few vocations.
Bishop Nic faced a situation that was “very, very difficult with determination and grace,” said Bridget Campion.
Campion has worked closely with De Angelis on the bishop’s most ambitious project — founding what he hopes will be an accredited Catholic liberal arts college associated with Trent University. Sacred Heart of Peterborough is already teaching a limited range of undergraduate courses while it goes through the process of gaining accreditation. There are plans to have full programs in Catholic studies and religious studies in place in 2015. Campion teaches courses in bioethics and moral theology at Sacred Heart and has designed more extensive programs for when Sacred Heart receives accreditation.
“The bishop’s enthusiasm was absolutely and continues to be absolutely vital to this,” Campion said. “Bishop Nic is totally committed. He’s really walking the talk. He’s been personally involved in fundraising. He’s been on the road with it. Without him we wouldn’t have this.”
The bishop’s fundraising has helped put $3.7 million in the Sacred Heart kitty. De Angelis calls Sacred Heart “the most important long-term development for renewal and ongoing strengthening of the Catholic Church in the diocese.”
But Bishop Nic’s enthusiasm has never clouded his humility.
“I ask forgiveness for my shortcomings, weaknesses and faults,” De Angelis wrote in his final pastoral letter to Peterborough Catholics.