Bishop Edward Malesic covered a variety of topics during a candid presentation to the First Friday Club of Greater Akron.
About 200 people filled Our Lady of Cedars’ banquet room on Sept. 5 for the bishop’s presentation, including student groups from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, Our Lady of the Elms and St. Mary School, all in Akron. He was introduced by Father Paul Rosing, pastor emeritus of Holy Family Parish in Stow.
“It’s not up to me to change the Church,” the bishop told the group. “It’s Jesus’ vision, not mine … I need to change, not the Word … the solution starts with me.”
He said it’s important for us to become intentional disciples of Jesus.
In his pastoral letter, “A Flourishing, Apostolic Church,” released in December 2024, the bishop talks about being intentional disciples, which he said makes us different than the rest of society. “We do things differently,” he said, adding there is a need for more of this type of person than cultural Catholics who “just check off the boxes” for what they need to do. “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice. It’s the result of an encounter with Christ, an encounter with a real person,” Bishop Malesic explained.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was raised and spent much of his priesthood, and now here in Cleveland, the bishop said he has lived near water, which can mean death, such as drowning – or life – cleansing, including baptism, during which we are cleansed of sin.
Once baptized, the bishop said we are joined to God. He lives in us and we become his beloved sons and daughters. It is important to make friends with Jesus, the bishop said, encouraging the group to “practice on earth so you know what to do when you get to heaven.”
He’s often asked what he is doing as bishop to bring people back to the Church. Bishop Malesic said people “are loved into the Church by others,” by knowing and telling their own story and inviting people to experience the Church.
By looking at the world around us, the bishop said it’s almost impossible not to believe in God. “There has to be a (higher) power who put all the pieces together,” he said.
And it’s important to listen to what the Lord says, as well as to acknowledge his plan for each of us, including our vocation. He praised the culture of vocations in the Cleveland Diocese, noting eight men were ordained to the priesthood in May and another six are continuing their discernment and formation for priestly ordination next year. But marriage, single life and religious life are also vocations.
“It’s about me. Change begins with me … Young people today are seeking truth, which is not relative. The truth does not change. The truth is that we are children of a living God. The Catholic Church is the guardian and proclaimer of the truth … Our faith is a treasure that sustains us all the way to heaven, where we become saints.”