“I was just shocked.”
That’s how Joanne DeGrood described news of her son’s appointment as bishop of Sioux Falls. Bishop-elect Donald DeGrood called her Dec. 12 at 5:01 a.m., she said, immediately after the news was publicized.
“I thought, what a blessing,” she added, noting that she never had expected her son to become a bishop.
At Bishop-elect DeGrood’s parish, St. John the Baptist in Savage, Vicky Guerrero also thought the news was a blessing, but she said she wasn’t that surprised.
“My heart was just elated,” she said. “I thought we’d have him here a little bit longer, but the way he has led us and just what a blessing he has been to this parish” showed her he might be destined for responsibility in the Church.
The administrative assistant at St. John the Baptist, Guerrero, 38, said that his vision for his parish has been for his parishioners to have eternal life in heaven, and she knows that will be his vision for the Sioux Falls diocese, too.
“That’s one of the greatest gifts that God has given him: He has a heart for the people and wants us all to be together in heaven,” she said.
Guerrero joined the parish after Bishop-elect DeGrood was appointed its pastor in 2017, she said, because of his impressive reputation as a priest.
“Everyone I know who knows him speaks so highly of him, especially priest-friends who see him as a mentor,” she said.
Father Troy Przybilla, who has served under Bishop-elect DeGrood as a parochial vicar, vacationed and fished with him on the North Shore of Lake Superior, said the bishop-elect will bring a strong prayer and faith life to his new role.
“I’m happy for the Church, sad for the archdiocese,” he said. “We are losing a great priest to become a bishop.”
Father Przybilla served his first assignment as a priest from 2005 to 2007 with Bishop-elect DeGrood at St. Peter in Forest Lake. Their pastor-associate pastor relationship blossomed into a friendship, said Father Przybilla, now pastor of St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony.
As his pastor, Bishop-elect first asked Father Przybilla where his strengths lie and what he felt comfortable doing as a priest.
“He was easy on me, allowing me to grow into the priesthood, while still challenging me,” Father Przybilla said. Most striking was witnessing Bishop-elect DeGrood’s prayerfulness, he said.
“Watching him bring things, issues into his prayer and really discerning them,” Father Przybilla said. “It helps me as a pastor to this day, bringing issues into prayer and allowing God to guide.”
Father Przybilla said he talked with Bishop-elect DeGrood the night before the announcement was made, and Bishop-elect DeGrood did not let on that anything had happened. Father DeGrood texted him the morning of Dec. 12 to let him know, Father Przybilla said.
Father Przybilla said he responded that having the announcement made on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was significant.
“It’s a reminder that she (Mary) is his mother, and she has him in the crossing of her arms and in the folds of her mantel,” Father Przybilla said.
Bishop-elect DeGrood’s earthly mother is also close with the fourth of her five sons. In her conversation with The Catholic Spirit, she reflected on the qualities that will make him a good bishop. Even as a child, Joanne DeGrood’s “valentine sweetheart” — Bishop-elect DeGrood’s birthday is Feb. 14 — was “very good with his prayer life,” she said.
He enrolled at St. John Vianney College Seminary for two of the years he was at the University of St. Thomas, but after graduation, took a sales job instead of pursuing the priesthood. His mother could see he felt unfulfilled, she said, so she wasn’t entirely surprised when he told her and his late father, Robert, he planned to enter St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul.
“He said, ‘Mom and Dad, if I went back to seminary, would you support me?’ I feel like that lone person in the desert, and he’s tapping me on the shoulder,’” she recalled. “Boy, did that ever give me the chills. I said, ‘Don, 100 percent, but if you go the four years and you say, it’s not for me, don’t stay. Just remember, there’s no perfect life. Follow your heart, and ride the ups and downs.’ It was up from the first day till the end.”
DeGrood, 88, said people tell her the bishop-elect is a good priest, but “you know when it’s your own, you think they’re good.”
“But he’s very thoughtful,” she added. He still helps with the harvest on their farm, which includes livestock, corn and grain.
During a Dec. 12 press conference in Sioux Falls, Bishop-elect DeGrood shared fond memories of his country upbringing and his affection for the rural life, and his mother echoed those shared sentiments.
“It’s the most wonderful place to raise a family,” she said. “They learn how to work, they learn how to get along with each other. I think it’s the perfect life for any child.”
She also said she was sad not to be able to share her happiness over her son’s appointment with her husband, Bob, who died in 2003. But she knows he would also feel blessed.
And that blessing extends southwest of the archdiocese, Guerrero thinks.
“It’s a loss to us,” she said, “but what a blessing to Sioux Falls.”
