| Styles of Stephen Blaire |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Monsignor |
| Posthumous style | not applicable |
Stephen Edward Blaire (born December 22, 1941) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the fifth and current Bishop of Stockton.
Stephen Blaire was born in Los Angeles, California, as the twelfth of fourteen children. He attended local Catholic schools in the San Fernando Valley, and graduated from Queen of Angels High School Seminary in 1959. Blaire then entered St. John's Seminary College in Camarillo. He was ordained to the priesthood by James Cardinal McIntyre on April 29, 1967, and then served as associate pastor of St. Luke's Church in Temple City until 1972.
From 1972 to 1986, Blaire performed his priestly ministry in Catholic secondary education, initially as a teacher and administrator at Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills and later as Vice Principal at Bishop Amat High School in La Puente. He was Principal at Bishop Alemany from 1977 to 1986, whence he became curial moderator and archdiocesan chancellor of Los Angeles.
On February 17, 1990, Blaire was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles and Titular Bishop of Lamzella by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on the following May 31 from Archbishop Roger Mahony, with Bishops John Ward and George Ziemann serving as co-consecrators. Blaire was made a vicar general of Los Angeles in 1990, and assigned to Our Lady of the Angels Pastoral Region in 1995.
He was later named the fifth Bishop of Stockton on January 18, 1999, being formally installed as such on March 16 of that same year in the Cathedral of the Annunciation.
Within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Blaire currently sits as on the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, having formerly chaired the Pastoral Practices Committee. He also serves as treasurer of the California Catholic Conference.
In 2001, Blaire learned of allegations that Pelaez, a priest of the Stockton diocese, had molested a 14-year old boy at Sacred Heart Church in Turlock in 1997. Blaire immediately suspended Pelaez and sent him to a medical facility on the East Coast - but he did not report the incident to civil authorities. Blaire indicated that, because the victim was an adult when he alleged the abuse, the diocese saw no need to report it. Blaire said his critics "made an issue about not reporting. We had no [legal] obligation to report." [1]
In November 2007, Stephen Blaire was defeated in his bid to win the chairmanship of the U.S. bishops' Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People because his track record demonstrated that he had opposed justice for victims of childhood sexual abuse and he did not report an incident of sexual abuse by a priest under his authority to the police. (see Sexual abuse scandal in Stockton diocese)[2]