Most Reverend John J. Myers, D.D., J.C.D.

Seventh Bishop of Peoria, 1990-2001
Coadjutor Bishop, 1987-1990

The Most Reverend John J. Myers, D.D., J.C.D., was the second native son to held the office.  Born July 26, 1941, in Ottawa, as the eldest of seven children and raised on a farm near Earlville in LaSalle County.

He was not convinced of his vocation to the priesthood until the end of his freshman year at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. "God kept asking me" to be a priest, he told Emmaus Days retreatants in 1995, "but I didn't pay a lot of attention at first." He switched to the college's seminary program in his sophomore year, graduated in 1963 and completed studies for the priesthood at the North American College in Rome. He was then ordained December 17, 1966, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

After his first assignment at Holy Family Parish in Peoria, he then worked in the international affairs office of the U.S. Catholic Conference before returning to the diocese in 1971 to serve as an assistant at St. Matthew Parish in Champaign.

In 1977 he earned his degree in canon law at the Catholic University of America and Bishop O'Rourke appointed him vice chancellor and vocation director. At that time, he launched the highly popular Emmaus Days vocation awareness retreats for young men.

Named Coadjutor Bishop
On September 3, 1987, he was made a Coadjutor Bishop to assist Bishop O'Rourke and succeeded him as governing Bishop when he retired in 1990.

Five months later, Bishop Myers released his first and most highly publicized pastoral message "The Obligations of Catholics and the Rights of Unborn Children" which drew national media attention for stating that "there is, and can be, no such thing as an authentic 'pro-choice' Catholic."

His next pastoral letter "The Eucharist: Sacrifice of Love" announced plans for a Diocesan Eucharistic Congress in 1992, to be preceded by a year of special attention and devotion to the Eucharist. Later pastoral letters included topics on Catholic education, family, chastity education, fatherhood and on the life of senior priests.

Bishop Myers ordained more than 80 new diocesan priests in his 11 1/2 years as bishop. In some years the Peoria diocese ordained as many or more priests than far larger sees such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, again gaining nation attention for bucking the long-standing trend of declining vocations.

In 1998 he announced the creation of the diocese's first new Catholic high school in 35 years named after St. Thomas More in Champaign, which opened in the fall of 2000.

He invited several new religious orders into the diocese, including Bl. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, the Community of St. John, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George (Alton Franciscans), the Rockford Poor Clares. With then-Bishop Charles Chaput of Rapid City, S.D., he formed a "sister diocese" relationship between the dioceses of Peoria and Rapid City.