The Most Reverend Joseph J. Gerry, Bishop of Portland, left chats with Maine Gov. John E. Baldacci at the St. Paul’s Center in Augusta on Tuesday, January 28, 2003. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

Joseph J. Gerry, a former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and longtime church leader in Maine and New Hampshire, has died.

Gerry died at age 94 at the Mt. Carmel Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Manchester, New Hampshire, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland said in a news release Sunday.

Gerry served as the 10th bishop of Portland from 1989 until February 2004, when he returned to Saint Anselm Abbey in New Hampshire. He lived there until his health deteriorated and was eventually transferred to the Mt. Carmel nursing center.

Gerry continued to return to Maine after his retirement for liturgies and to assist in administering the sacrament of confirmation, the diocese said.

Bishop Joseph Gerry

“Bishop Joseph gave his life in service to Christ and the Church. He was a monk, a priest, an abbot, a bishop, and spent 15 years as Bishop of Portland,” current Bishop Robert Deeley said in a statement. “In each mission that he accepted from the Church, he was the pastoral presence of the Good Shepherd, helping everyone he met in coming to know Christ in a new way. Though saddened by his death, we are strengthened by the hope that faith gives us that this good man will be in the loving presence of God.”

Gerry joined the faculty of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1959 and was named conventual prior of the abbey. He also served as academic dean of Saint Anselm and was then elected chancellor in 1972. He held those posts until he was ordained as the auxiliary bishop of Manchester, a position he held for three years before being named the 10th bishop of Portland on Dec. 27, 1988. He succeeded former Portland Bishop Edward O’Leary.

Gerry was installed as Portland’s bishop on Feb. 21, 1989, during a ceremony at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

“I was born and brought up among the people of Maine. To them, to whom I owe so much, I offer the fullest measure of my affection. The deepest desire of my heart is and shall be to serve all of them to the utmost of my strength and ability,” Gerry said at the time of his appointment.

Gerry died on the 75th anniversary of his membership in the Benedictine novitiate, a community he entered at age 18 while a student at Saint Anselm College.

Gerry was born in Millinocket in 1928, one of eight children of Bernard and Blanche Gerry, and graduated from Stearns High School in Millinocket in 1945. He was baptized with the name John Gregory, named after the fifth bishop of Portland, John Gregory Murray. Joseph was the name he received when he entered religious life.

According to the Portland diocese, Gerry was considering three possible vocations during his college years that included studying to become a doctor, teacher, or priest. In an interview in 1989, Gerry said he chose the priesthood because of his family’s deep faith and because of the priests and religious sisters he had met in his life. He was ordained on June 12, 1945, at St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester.

Portland’s new Bishop, Richard Malone, left, shares a laugh with retired Bishop Joseph Gerry, right, after a press conference to announce the Pope’s new appointee on February 10, 2004. Doug Jones/Staff photo file

Others in the Catholic Church who knew and worked with Gerry said he will be remembered as a man of deep faith who had a gentle spirit and warm smile.

“He respected everybody, and he found the good in everybody,” said Sister Rita-Mae Bissonette. “I think the greatest gift he gave to the diocese was the spirituality he brought. He was genuine. It was a glow from within that shined through.”

In a Facebook post Sunday, Saint Anselm College acknowledged Gerry’s death. He served as Saint Anselm’s third abbot, from 1972 to 1986.

Facebook commenters also mourned him.

“What a blessed and wonderful man,” one woman wrote. “You were very special and kind to our family. The community has lost a great soul and spiritual leader.”

“Bishop Gerry gave so much of himself to the students of Saint Anselm,” another woman said.

Funeral arrangements are pending.