Background
Walsh was born in San Francisco, California, and was ordained to the priesthood on March 30, 1963, in the Mission Dolores Basilica.
Walsh was born in San Francisco, California, and was ordained to the priesthood on March 30, 1963, in the Mission Dolores Basilica.
The Catholic University of America.
He served as the bishop of Bishop of Reno-Las Vegas before becoming the first Bishop of Las Vegas and the fifth Bishop of Santa Rosa in California. From 1966 to 1970, he taught at JunÃpero Serra High School in San Mateo. Walsh served as assistant chancellor for the Archdiocese of San Francisco from 1970 to 1976, and then as private secretary to Archbishop Joseph McGucken until 1978.
He became chancellor of the archdiocese in 1978, and its vicar general in 1981.
On July 30, 1981, Walsh was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of San Francisco and Titular Bishop of Tigias by Pope John Paul World War II He received his episcopal consecration on the following September 24 from Archbishop John Quinn, with Bishops Michael Kenny and Joseph Ferrario serving as co-consecrators, in Saint Mary"s Cathedral. Walsh was later named Bishop of Reno-Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 9, 1987, and became Bishop of Las Vegas when the diocese was separated on March 21, 1995.
He returned to California upon his nomination by John Paul II as the fifth bishop of Santa Rosa on April 11, 2000, and was formally installed on May 22 of that same year. lieutenant was announced (by VIS, the Vatican Information Service, and by the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) on January 24, 2011, that Bishop Robert F. Vasa, formerly the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baker, Oregon, would become the Coadjutor Bishop to Bishop Walsh, and as such would succeed him.
The succession formally occurred on 30 June 2011, when Bishop Walsh"s official resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI. Within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Walsh as of 2012 chaired the Committee on World Missions, and sits on the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.