by Barbara Stinson Lee
Intermountain Catholic

Return to special coverage of Bishop Wester's Installation

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – When Msgr. John C. Wester was ordained bishop in 1998, Catholic San Francisco, official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, in its special issue celebrating his ordination, offered some “Little Known Facts About Bishop Wester.” These days, as the archdiocese prepared for Bishop Wester’s installation as the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, those little known facts became “Factoids about Bishop Wester.”

In the interest of preserving tradition, the Intermountain Catholic offers: “More about Bishop Wester.”

1. When Bishop Wester traveled to China and Vietnam on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, he called his mother from the Great Wall of China.

2. Bishop Wester loves to fish, and he loves to fish with his nieces and nephews. Of his nine nieces and nephews, only his niece, Sarah, age 13 and his nephew Stephen, age 14, have ever caught a fish in his presence.

3. Bishop Wester enjoys marrying his former students and baptizing their babies.

4. When it comes to vocations to the priesthood, the religious life, or to marriage, he will counsel people to, “Listen to the words that only you can hear. The call of God can’t be heard amid the noise today. We must stop, slow down, and listen.”

5. Bishop Wester loves to attend the symphony, the opera, theater, and movies, and he particularly enjoys reading American literature.

6. Bishop Wester sometimes finds it hard to carve out time for himself.

7. Bishop Wester needs a racquetball partner or two.

8. He loves to play bridge and poker and a card game called “Sheep’s Head,” whatever that is.

9. Although it was difficult to find anything Bishop Wester has ever done wrong, his friend Fr. Konkel said he once actually ran into someone’s car with his car. “I don’t think he pushed him very far, though,” Fr. Konkel said.

10. He believes some day he will master the game of golf.

11. He dabbles in electrical repair - it’s believed he broke his reported “lights out” record of one to “a few more” these past few years.

12. He thinks he is a chef but most of his friends think of him as a cook.

13. He started a reading club at St. Stephen’s Parish in San Francisco with classical novels discussed weekly.

14. He likes poker, crossword puzzles, and Sudoku.

15. His baby grand piano almost didn’t make it up the hill to the bishop’s residence in Salt Lake City.

16. He has a nephew named after him - John Eric O’Sullivan.

17. He loves carpentry work.

18. He is know to become extremely emotional when catching a big fish and yells at ear piercing levels: “Get the net, get the net.”

19. He loves high tech gadgetry.

20. He loves to laugh.

21. Although colorblind, Bishop Wester worked one summer as a taxi driver in San Francisco. I have it on good authority that he didn’t make much money because he often paid his passengers’ fares.

22. Bishop Wester used to co-own two horses. One was stolen when a person claiming to be a blacksmith took the horse to be shod and never brought it back.