Bishop Richard F. Stika, third bishop of Knoxville, dies

The East Tennessee Catholic

Bishop Richard F. Stika, who served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville from 2009 to 2023, died in his native St. Louis at age 68. He was found in his residence on Feb. 17.

A memorial Mass will be celebrated at the Church of the Annunziata in Ladue, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis, at 10 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, March 3. The funeral Mass and burial will take place at noon Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 10, at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville, with Bishop Mark Beckman as principal celebrant and Cardinal Timothy Dolan as homilist.

Annunziata is where, as a monsignor, Bishop Stika served before his appointment to East Tennessee.

Bishop Beckman, Knoxville’s fourth bishop, who succeeded Bishop Stika, learned of his predecessor’s death on Feb. 17.

“We keep Bishop Stika in our prayers that the Lord may bring him fully into the light of His kingdom and for his family, and for all who mourn his passing, we offer our prayers for their consolation. May he rest in peace with the Lord,” Bishop Beckman said.

Richard Frank Stika was born July 4, 1957, in St. Louis, the third child of Frank Jr. and Helen Stika. He had two older brothers, Lawrence and Robert Stika, and a younger brother, Joe Calabro.

The future bishop grew up in a small brick bungalow on Scanlan Avenue in south St. Louis, where the family belonged to Epiphany of Our Lord Parish. The young Richard Stika attended the parish elementary school before going to St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Mich., the only time he lived outside of the St. Louis area before coming to Knoxville as bishop. He returned to St. Louis and graduated in 1975 from Bishop DuBourg High School.

He studied at St. Louis University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in business in 1979 and discerned his vocation to the priesthood. He enrolled at Kenrick Seminary in Shrewsbury, Mo., now Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy in 1981 and a master of divinity degree in 1985. Cardinal John J. Carberry ordained him as a transitional deacon on May 1, 1985.

He was ordained a priest on Dec. 14, 1985, by St. Louis Archbishop John L. May. Bishop Stika served as an associate pastor of Mary Queen of Peace Parish in Webster Groves, Mo.; St. Paul Parish in Fenton, Mo.; and the Cathedral of St. Louis Parish. He also served as chancellor of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Then-Monsignor Stika coordinated an event that was one of the most historic in the life of the archdiocese. Cardinal Justin Rigali, then archbishop of St. Louis, hosted Pope John Paul II when he came to St. Louis in 1999, with Monsignor Stika coordinating the Holy Father’s visit.

Monsignor Stika was serving as pastor of Annunziata Parish in Ladue when he received a call on Dec. 16, 2008, from the papal nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, telling him Pope Benedict XVI had appointed him bishop of Knoxville.

“It was a very gracious call that began a flood of emotion that takes me to this very special moment with you today,” he said at his initial press conference in Knoxville on Jan. 12, 2009, the day his appointment was announced. “I’ve had almost three weeks to prepare—weeks that were filled with faith-filled moments and very human moments of joy that I was coming to Knoxville but also sadness because I will be leaving a community, a city, and parishes that I’ve served and where I’ve lived for nearly 52 years.”

Bishop Stika was ordained and installed as bishop on March 19, 2009, the solemnity of St. Joseph, to whom he had a special devotion. He would later credit the saint’s intercession for him after he survived major health incidents related to his Type 1 diabetes and his heart.

He resigned his episcopate in June 2023, citing health concerns and became bishop-emeritus of Knoxville. The resignation occurred amid controversy surrounding his handling of legal cases involving the diocese.

Questions arose over the manner in which he dealt with separate complaints involving a seminarian and a former priest in the diocese. This resulted in a canonical process called a “visitation” conducted by brother bishops, who forwarded their reports to the Roman Dicastery charged with advising the Holy Father on matters involving bishops. After this visitation Bishop Stika offered his resignation as bishop of Knoxville to Pope Francis, who accepted it on June 27, 2023.

Bishop Stika will be remembered for leading the effort to build the new Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, dedicated in 2018. He even operated a backhoe to turn over the first furrows of earth at the groundbreaking in 2015 and frequently rode in a crane for up-close inspections of the cathedral dome under construction. The baldacchino of the cathedral, a 45-foot-high canopy over the altar, bears an inscription of Bishop Stika’s episcopal motto: Iesu Confido in Te (“Jesus, I trust in you”).

The bishop presided at Masses for the cathedral groundbreaking on April 19, 2015, and for its dedication on March 3, 2018. The groundbreaking Mass attracted parishioners from throughout the diocese as well as many dignitaries, including Cardinal Rigali, Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal William Levada, then-Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, then-Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero, former Knox County Mayor and now Congressman Tim Burchett, former University of Tennessee president Joe DiPietro, and former UT football head coach Butch Jones.

During his tenure, Bishop Stika ordained 24 priests and 47 permanent deacons, established several parishes, and welcomed five religious communities to the diocese. He also traveled to Colombia and Mexico for two of the priestly ordinations.

Among the new Catholic communities established were two for Vietnamese Catholics: Divine Mercy in Knoxville and the St. Faustina Public Association of the Faithful in Chattanooga. St. Faustina was told by Jesus to have an image painted with the words “Jesus, I Trust in You,” the bishop’s motto.

The Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., were the first community Bishop Stika invited to serve in the diocese. They were followed by the Evangelizing Sisters of Mary, the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, the Benedictines of Divine Will, and the Benedictine Daughters of Divine Will. The bishop renewed affiliation with Glenmary Home Missioners, which oversaw new parishes in Maynardville and Erwin and a new mission in Rutledge, and he continued affiliations with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation and the Paulist Fathers.

Bishop Stika dedicated numerous churches and other parish buildings, including the large St. John Neumann Church in Farragut in 2009, an extensive building project begun under the diocese’s second bishop, now retired Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz. Under Bishop Stika’s leadership, the St. Mary’s Legacy Foundation was established following the sale of St. Mary’s Health System. In 2013, the bishop dedicated the first St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic mobile medical van, which continues to offer free medical care to uninsured residents of East Tennessee.

Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Chattanooga was declared a minor basilica by the Vatican in 2011 early in Bishop Stika’s time in the diocese. The bishop’s Home Campaign also funded a major renovation of the basilica, built in 1890. He presided over both the inquiry in 2020 opening the sainthood cause of Blessed Father Patrick Ryan, a Sts. Peter and Paul pastor who died in the city’s yellow-fever epidemic in the 1870s, and the re-entombment of Father Ryan’s remains at the basilica in 2021.

The bishop organized a Eucharistic Congress held in Sevierville in September 2013, which attracted Cardinal Rigali, Cardinal Dolan, Bishop Robert Barron, Dr. Scott Hahn, Archbishop Kurtz, and other bishops from around the United States.

Bishop Stika also established Christ Prince of Peace Retreat Center in Benton in 2012.

He met Pope Francis multiple times and attended the canonizations of St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II at the Vatican. Pope Francis blessed a dedication stone for the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus during one visit from Bishop Stika and Cardinal Rigali.

The bishop navigated the diocese through the COVID pandemic, when Masses were suspended at all churches in early 2020 before resuming on Pentecost weekend that year.

Bishop Stika led the diocese when it celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013. He also celebrated his own 25th and 35th anniversaries of priestly ordination while serving in Knoxville.

His death occurred just days before his beloved St. Louis Cardinals baseball team played its first spring-training game, an event he looked forward to every year. The bishop was a lifelong fan of the team and a longtime friend of Cardinals legend and Hall of Fame member Stan Musial and his wife, Lillian, and he knew many other St. Louis players and front-office personnel. Bishop Stika was a celebrant at Mr. Musial’s funeral Mass in 2013.

Bishop Stika forged a decades-long friendship with Cardinal Rigali after the latter was appointed archbishop of St. Louis in 1994. The future bishop was elevated to monsignor in 1995, and Cardinal Rigali went on to serve as archbishop of Philadelphia in 2003. After he retired in 2011, he relocated to Knoxville to live with Bishop Stika, and he continued to reside with him when the bishop returned to St. Louis.

Bishop Stika often jokingly connected Cardinal Rigali’s title with his favorite baseball team’s nickname, and he wasn’t above mentioning, even in a homily, his favorite hamburger chain, White Castle.

Cardinal Rigali was principal consecrator of Bishop Stika at his episcopal ordination at the Knoxville Convention Center. Co-consecrators were Archbishop Kurtz and Bishop Robert J. Shaheen, then bishop of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, a Maronite eparchy with a cathedral in St. Louis. Bishop Stika had bi-ritual faculties in the Maronite Church.

Bishop Stika, in conjunction with the cathedral groundbreaking, presided at a Conversation with the Cardinals event at the Tennessee Theater in 2015 with his friends Cardinal Rigali, Cardinal Dolan, and Cardinal William Levada.

The bishop was only two steps removed in apostolic succession from Pope John Paul II. The future saint ordained Cardinal Rigali as an archbishop in 1985, and Cardinal Rigali would go on to ordain Bishop Stika.

“The person [in the lineage] I think I’m most proud of, because I’ve always had a special sense of him, is Pope John Paul II,” Bishop Stika said in 2009. “It’s like he’s my episcopal grandfather.”