New Catholic bishop brings experience in formation and collaboration.

It might take some time for Bishop Ralph B. O’Donnell to get used to the limelight. He’s accustomed to collaborating, facilitating, and ministering among the masses, low-key and one-on-one.

“It’s hard to think of myself as being a person of interest,” says the bishop, who will be ordained and installed as the fifth Roman Catholic bishop of Jefferson City on October 28. “Over time, I suppose I’ll get used to that. I’m just happy to serve the Lord and very hopeful.”

The Omaha native, priest, and youngest of 10 siblings was born into a large Catholic family and raised in a home next door to Omaha’s Our Lady of Lourdes Church. Unfortunately, he never got to know his father, who died before Ralph turned 2 years old.

His mother worked and prayed constantly. His uncle, a priest of the Omaha archdiocese, saw to it that young Ralph and his siblings got a good Catholic education. Young Ralph’s priestly aspirations peaked and trailed off several times, but they never went away completely. Almost midway through college, he had a spiritual experience and decided to give the seminary a try.

His archbishop enrolled him in Conception Seminary College in northwestern Missouri, followed by St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois, near Chicago. On June 7, 1997, Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss, now retired, ordained him a priest of the Omaha archdiocese. He served as an associate pastor while completing a Master’s of Arts Degree in Spirituality from Creighton University in Omaha.

Bishop-elect O’Donnell served for five years as head of the archdiocese’s vocation office, helping men who were discerning a possible calling to the priesthood. Later, while ministering as pastor of two parishes, he was appointed head of the Omaha archdiocese’s program for preparing men to become permanent deacons. He then moved back to northwestern Missouri to serve as vice rector and dean of formation at Conception Seminary College.

“I’m just happy to serve the Lord and very hopeful.”

Bishop Ralph O’Donnell

As dean of students, he lived in community with seminarians, who were discerning and preparing to move on to the next phase of their priestly formation. He helped them recognize and work to overcome any obstacles to priestly discernment — be they spiritual, academic, emotional, or practical. As vice rector, he stood in for the rector whenever necessary and handled many day-to-day operations at the seminary.

I remember getting to visit Jefferson City every Sunday and receive the hospitality of Bishop (John R.)
Gaydos (now deceased), who had several seminarians at conception and collaborated in the good work with the vocation director and the vicar for clergy,” Bishop O’Donnell states.

Those visits allowed him to get to know the goodness of the people in Jefferson City. Afterwards, he spent five years in Washington, D.C., as executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) secretariat of clergy, consecrated life, and vocations. He did so in service to the chairman of and members of the USCCB standing committee of the same name.

“That combined and took to the national level the practical work I had done in formation for priestly life, working at a seminary in a religious community,” he says.

Bishop-elect O’Donnell returned to Omaha in late 2019 to become pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish, a large and active congregation in the area of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In August of this year, Pope Leo XIV appointed him to serve as head of the Diocese of Jefferson City. He will shepherd and govern the Church in these 38 counties, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, who is the pope, and the other bishops of the world. He will administer the sacrament of confirmation to people throughout the diocese and offer Mass on important occasions in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, and he will instruct, energize, and work with clergy and laypeople throughout the diocese to carry out the mission of the Church, which has been handed down from Christ and his Apostles through the generations.

Founded in 1956 from what had been portions of the St. Louis archdiocese and the former Kansas City and St. Joseph dioceses, the Diocese of Jefferson City now includes about 74,500 Catholics among a population of about 927,000 people living in 38 counties in central and northeastern Missouri. The diocese includes 90 parishes, 36 Catholic grade schools, and three Catholic high schools.

“I’m eager to get here to the diocese and be present and learn what I can,” Bishop O’Donnell says. “I stand in gratitude to all those who have helped shape me. I think it’s going to be great to be here. I know it’s going to be challenging, but it’s going to be great.”

1969 Born on Aug. 31, baptized on Sept. 14.
1987 Graduated from St. Joseph High School in Omaha.
1993 Graduated from Conception Seminary College in Northwestern Missouri.
1996 Ordained a transitional deacon.
1997 Graduated from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Ordained to the Priesthood on June 7.
2000 Master of Arts Degree in Spirituality, Creighton University, Omaha.
2003 Appointed vocation director for the Omaha archdiocese.
2008 Appointed director of the archdiocese’s permanent deacon program and pastor of two parishes.
2011-15 Served as vice rector and dean of formation at Conception Seminary College.
2015-19 Served in Washington, D.C., as executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations.
2019 Appointed pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Omaha.
2025 Appointed and installed as fifth bishop of Jefferson City.