By Joyce Coronel | June 18, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

From a boyhood growing up on a small farm in Kansas to his 16 years spent studying and working in Rome, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted has had a depth and breadth of experiences few Catholics can begin to imagine.

As a child, he rode a horse to the one-room schoolhouse where he attended classes for the first eight years of his education. And though the family worked hard milking cows by hand and raising chickens and pigs, they gathered each evening for prayer, often saying the rosary together.

But it was his time working with Pope John Paul II that had a profound impact on Bishop Olmsted, who spent nine years working as an assistant at the Secretariat of State at the Holy See.

“He was a man of great authenticity, deeply committed to the Lord, united to Him in prayer and living out the Gospel,” Bishop Olmsted said of the late pontiff. “I’m this tiny little example. He’s my model of what I should be as a bishop.”

It was John Paul II’s intense prayer life and compassion for others that stand out in Bishop Olmsted’s mind and continue to shape his own life.

“If I was going to have Mass with him in the morning, no matter how soon anybody else got there, he would already be there praying. He would be just deeply involved in his prayer,” the bishop said.

“He would come out every evening at 5 o’clock and pray the rosary,” he said, recalling that he often observed the pope on a nearby balcony. “He’d stop at the edge and look down over the city, praying for everybody there.”

Bishop Olmsted also continues to ponder the question Pope John Paul II raised to a group of priests shortly before his first trip to the Unites States.

“What are the things I cannot remain silent about for the sake of the Gospel when I go to the U.S.?” he asked the priests, Bishop Olmsted among them. “I found that a very fascinating question.”

The priests advised the globetrotting pontiff that the teaching of Humanae Vitae and the evils of contraception and abortion were of great importance.

John Paul II’s defense of the dignity of the human person deeply struck a chord with Bishop Olmsted, who said that he sensed a special calling by God to defend life when he was ordained in 1973. 

“By God’s providence, He had me become a servant of the Gospel the very year of the tragic and unjust decision of the Supreme Court that legalized abortion,” he said. “You know you’re sent by Christ to bring the Good News to the poor, and the poorest of the poor are those who have no rights.”

And though he is seen each Christmas Eve and Good Friday praying the rosary at a Phoenix abortion clinic, the bishop of Phoenix also has a tender heart for those in prison.

That compassion springs from the 16 years he spent in Rome, away from his family. Bishop Olmsted celebrates Mass at Christmas and Easter each year with prisoners who are separated from their loved ones during the holidays.

When did you first sense God calling you to the priesthood?

I can’t remember when I didn’t. I grew up in a family where praying was as natural as breathing. I always had a great desire to pray and be near to God and to serve Him. It wasn’t the only thing I thought about doing, but it was constantly there. At age 4 or 5, I was practicing saying Mass. I remember taking a little Saltine cracker and biting the corners off so it would be round.

Did someone invite you to consider the priesthood?

Yes, the priest in the town where I went to high school, 12 miles away. His name was Fr. Dennis Pickert, and in my senior year he invited me to come down to the rectory to speak with him. He told me he thought I would make a good priest. He knew my family through sports — our family was very involved in baseball and basketball.

What can families do to encourage more vocations to the priesthood?

The most important thing a married couple can do for their kids is to love each other. The love they have for each other is the fountain from which they love their children. It’s the example of making the gift of yourself to another that inspires vocations. As John Paul II said, a human person cannot understand himself until he learns to make a gift of himself. When kids see their parents love each other they have security. That’s the best thing [parents] can do to foster vocations.