Remembering Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, beloved Detroit priest and activist

SOUTHFIELD (FOX 2) - Visitation began Wednesday for Bishop Thomas Gumbleton - the 94-year-old was a beloved Detroit priest and passionate activist - who wasn't afraid to disagree with church doctrine.

Here's a look back through the TV 2 archives at his long and purpose-driven life. TV 2 reported on Bishop Thomas Gumbleton's journey to Iran - to visit American hostages being held in the American Embassy there in 1979 - he celebrated Christmas mass with some of them.

Nancy McCauly reporting for TV 2:  "It was a joyous homecoming - 46-year-old Bishop Thomas Gumbleton - the peacemaker - was back home in Detroit safe and sound."

"I got up and went to each one and we embraced to exchange the sign of peace," he said at the time. "And we could whisper to each other and nobody could hear. Each one of them said to me at that point, 'Thanks for coming, we really needed this.' So after that, I knew that it was the right thing to do and I was just totally glad that I was there."

Before leaving for Iran he had discussed the intent of the mission.

"I would simply be trying to bring them encouragement and some sense of support - that they're not abandoned, they're not alone," Gumbleton said at the time.

It was that sense of care and compassion that Thomas Gumbleton would lead with, throughout his life. At the age of 38 - he had become a bishop in 1968 - the youngest ever at that time.

"There's an attempt to put emphasis on youth and to show that the church is not out of date or archaic," he said in an interview with TV 2.

Gumbleton himself was anything but that - a progressive and passionate peace and social justice activist, he was arrested outside the White House during an anti-war protest, was a founder of Pax Christi and the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights.

From the war on poverty:  "The possibility of establishing a national Catholic crusade against poverty."

To trying to put an end to the war in Vietnam: "It's a very important moral and economic issue."

And the Gulf War: "Before you turn to war you must have exhausted every other means which means you have to negotiate."

But this peace activist wasn't afraid to fight - to give voice to the voiceless - hope to the hopeless.

For decades he served those in need at St. Leo's in Detroit, where he lived and slept on a simple bed on the floor of his office - his preference for people over personal possessions.

He was a Detroiter fighting for Detroit.

"Perhaps the major problem of the whole community is how to cope with the crime and the violence and how to overcome that - and to make this the place that people aren't afraid to live in," he said to TV 2.

And he worked to make sure people weren't afraid to worship in the Catholic Church - Bishop Gumbleton advocated for the rights of women and LGBTQ Catholics within the Church - after all, his own brother was gay.

Gumbleton's courage to speak out for the marginalized led the Church to force him out into retirement in 2007.

But he didn't stop speaking - in 2013, Gumbleton broke with Archbishop Alan Vigneron when Vigneron told gay Catholics and their supporters they should not receive holy communion - it was Bishop Gumbleton, instead, who said all were welcome.

"Don't stop going to communion - you're okay," he said at the time. "A person coming up to communion has a right to make their own decision, about am I in the state of grace, am I ready to receive. Well, that's for the person to decide, not for the minister, or not for any bishop or any other kind of law, or anyone."

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton turned 94 in January - he even received a birthday card from Pope Francis - thanking him for his testimony as a pastor, a good shepherd - and joking that bad weeds never die.

A visitation for Gumbleton will be held at 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 11 at Detroit Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 1000 Eliot Street Detroit, 48207.
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A Friday visitation will be held at 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Chas. Verheyden, Inc.16300 Mack Avenue, Grosse Pointe Park, 48230

Gumbleton will lie in state Saturday, April 13 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, 9844 Woodward Ave. Detroit, 48202

Gumbleton's funeral mass will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament.