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The people of the Diocese of San Jose, Calif., bade farewell to Bishop R. Pierre DuMaine, the diocese’s founding bishop, at a Funeral Mass celebrated by Bishop Oscar Cantu at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in downtown San Jose June 27.
Bishop DuMaine died June 13 after several years of declining health. He was 87.
Ordained an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 1978, he became the founding bishop of the San Jose Diocese in 1981.
In a 2017 interview with The Valley Catholic, San Jose’s diocesan newspaper, that marked the 60th anniversary of his priestly ordination, Bishop DuMaine called the foundation of the new diocese a wonderful opportunity, adding that the theology of the Second Vatican Council was made real in the new diocese.
Key among the guiding principles put forth by the council, he said, were the active role of the laity and women religious “and a permeating spirit of collaboration.”
Born in Paducah, Ky., he attended elementary schools in Kentucky and California. He studied at St. Joseph and St. Patrick seminaries in the Archdiocese of San Francisco and was ordained in 1957.
He pursued graduate studies at The Catholic University of America, where he earned a doctorate in education. He was an assistant professor there from 1961 to 1963. He then moved on to teach at Serra High School in San Mateo, Calif.
He later became the assistant superintendent and superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of San Francisco from 1965 until 1978, when he was named an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese.
Among his accomplishments as San Jose’s bishop was overseeing the restoration of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, the largest privately funded renewal project of downtown San Jose. The efforts ensured that the cathedral basilica survived the 1989 earthquake.
Bishop DuMaine also recognized the significant role of technology in social communications as well as the role of communications in the Catholic Church’s mission of evangelization. His service on several U.S. bishops’ committees through the years included being chairman of the U.S. bishops’ communications committee. He also was a member of what was then the Pontifical Commission on Social Communications.
After retiring in 1999, the bishop became a visiting professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University and Stanford University.—CNS
