The Catholic Key

Bishop announces canonical assignments

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:27:06 +0000

By Jack Smith
Catholic Key Editor

KANSAS CITY — Bishop Robert W. Finn recently announced a number of canonical appointments for the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph.

Jude Huntz will serve as Chancellor of the Diocese. In November 2011, he assumed duties as Chief of Staff. Huntz will retain those responsibilities.

Huntz came to the Diocese in 2008 as Director of Human Rights. He is a 1994 graduate of Canisius College and holds master’s degrees in Humanities from the University of Dallas and Pastoral Studies from Loyola University-Chicago. He is a certified teacher, with records of service in Catholic elementary schools and at the Barstow School in Kansas City. In 2005, Huntz was named Teacher of the Year in the Kansas City Region and the State of Missouri for his work at Barstow. Huntz also has worked in adult faith formation. He has served as a board member of the National Roundtable of Social Justice Directors and as Chair of the Public Policy Committee for the Missouri Catholic Conference. Huntz and his family are parishioners at St. Therese Little Flower in Kansas City.

Huntz succeeds Monsignor Bradley S. Offutt as Chancellor. Msgr. Offutt served seven years as Chancellor and now will serve as Vicar General. As previously reported, Msgr. Offutt also will become Rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Ordained in 1986, Msgr. Offutt last year celebrated 25 years of priestly ministry. He has served as Associate Pastor at St. Bernadette and St. Therese North parishes in Kansas City. In 1993, he became Pastor at both Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Harrisonville and St. Bridget in Pleasant Hill. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of a new church for each parish community. The experience served him well; as Chancellor he guided a number of strategic planning initiatives for the Diocese.

Msgr. Offutt succeeds Msgr. Robert Murphy as Vicar General. Following a seven-year term as Vicar General, Msgr. Murphy has asked to return to full-time pastoral ministry at St. Bridget, where he also has been Pastor since 2007.

Among his duties, Msgr. Offutt will act as Vicar for Clergy. Within the last year, Fr. Joseph Powers performed these duties. He will return to full-time pastoral ministry at Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, where he has served since 2008.

Bishop Finn expressed appreciation to Msgr. Murphy and Fr. Powers for their past service and continued ministry.

Bishop Finn has appointed Fr. Patrick Rush as Episcopal Vicar with Special Mandate. As the Bishop and the Diocese face separate criminal charges of failure to report suspected child abuse, Bishop Finn has determined that another experienced party should represent the interests of the Diocese.

Canon Law provides bishops the prerogative to name priests as Vicars to carry out specific duties on their behalf. Fr. Rush will provide “independent representation, deliberation, and decision-making with executive power” concerning the criminal charge against the Diocese.

Bishop Finn’s letter of appointment stated that the decision to create an Episcopal Vicar with Special Mandate will “avoid even the appearance of conflict concerning the juridical affairs of the diocese.” The appointment carries the authority to make decisions independently of the bishop and will expire upon resolution of the case involving the Diocese.

Ordained in 1969, Fr. Rush has served nine parishes in Kansas City. Under Bishops Charles Helmsing, John Sullivan and Raymond Boland, Fr. Rush served as Vice-Chancellor, Director of Permanent Diaconate and Director of Priestly Life and Ministry. From 1994 to 2005, he was Bishop Boland’s Vicar General. He currently is Pastor of Visitation Parish.

Canonical Assignments

Bishop Finn is pleased to make the following Canonical Assignments

Mr. Jude Huntz, formerly Director of the Diocesan Human Rights Office and Bishop’s Chief of Staff, appointed Chancellor of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, and to retain duties as Chief of Staff, effective June 12, 2012.

Reverend Monsignor A. Robert Murphy, formerly Vicar General of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Pastor of St. Bridget Parish, Pleasant Hill, to remain full time Pastor of St. Bridget Parish, Pleasant Hill, effective June 12, 2012.

Reverend Monsignor Bradley S. Offutt, formerly Chancellor of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, and recently appointed Rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Kansas City, appointed Vicar General of the Diocese, and to serve as Rector of the Cathedral, effective June 12, 2012.

Reverend Joseph Powers, formerly Episcopal Vicar for Clergy and Pastor of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, in St. Joseph, to remain as full time Pastor of Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, effective June 12, 2012.

Reverend Patrick Rush, Pastor of Visitation Parish, Kansas City, appointed Episcopal Vicar with Special Mandate, and to remain Pastor of Visitation Parish, effective May 15, 2012.

Rev. Darvin Salazar: Priest from Guatemala overcame obstacles to ordination

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:18:28 +0000

Newly ordained Father Darvin Salazar offers a first blessing to Bishop Robert W. Finn. (Nick Befort photo)

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — Be not afraid? If Father Darvin Salazar needs a motto, that one will work just fine.

In fact, if ever there is a sequel written to the late John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage,” Father Salazar would make a nice chapter.

All along his dream of the priesthood, which finally came true May 19 as one of six priests ordained for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Father Salazar faced obstacles that might have made Job give up.

First of all, he came to the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph from Guatemala, not speaking a word of English.

Secondly, he constantly battled homesickness, even as a 14-year-old seminarian in his homeland, but also as a stranger in a foreign land.

And third, and perhaps the greatest of his challenges, his own bishop in Guatemala turned down his application to switch his studies from being a religious order priest to a diocesan, parish priest, bringing his seminary training to a halt.

“Those days were difficult for me because I felt frustration in my heart,” said Father Salazar, who now speaks English flawlessly.

He admits that he let God know exactly how he felt. “I said, ‘God, what do you really want from me. You called me and now you are closing the door and the possibility to fulfill my vocation.’”

But as the cliché goes, a door closed and a window opened.

Four years ago, he met a priest of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph who was leading a mission trip to Guatemala and told him his story.

“I do not remember his name, but right away, he put me in contact with Father Richard Rocha (diocesan vocations director) and Gustavo Valdez (now diocesan director of Hispanic Ministry) who helped me get through the process,” Father Salazar said. “They got the necessary recommendations, and I was accepted. I came in August 2009.”

That was more than 11 years after he first entered the minor seminary as a 14-year-old at Monsenor Prospero Penados del Barrio in Guatemala City, which seemed like a world away from his home village of San Antonio Teocinte.

“It was very difficult to leave far from my town and from my family,” he said. “Every night I used to cry because I missed them so much.”

But he persevered.

“I knew that leaving my family was the only possibility I had to fulfill the will of God,” he said.

He was studying to be a Trinitarian priest and had completed seven years of major and minor seminary study when he decided that his call was to the diocesan priesthood.

Father Salazar said the superiors of the Trinitarian order gave him permission to leave the seminary for a year to discern further, and he spent that year “experiencing diocesan life.”

“After that year, I was sure my vocation was for the diocesan priesthood,” Father Salazar said.

“I applied for one of the dioceses in my country, however the bishop of that diocese thought I didn’t have a real vocation because I was switching from religious to diocesan life, so he rejected my petition,” Father Salazar said.

In prayer, he turned to Mary and Joseph, who, he did not realize then, are the co-patrons of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

“I commended myself to the Blessed Mother and to St. Joseph asking them to help me find the place where God wanted me to be,” Father Salazar said.

Not long after, he met the Kansas City-St. Joseph priest.

“He was the angel and the sign I asked God for in those days of despair,” he said. “We were eating breakfast and suddenly we started talking about the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and the need for Spanish-speaking seminarians.

“He looked at me and without knowing who I was, said, ‘Do you want to come?’” Father Salazar said.

“My answer was, ‘I could not survive in your country. I do not speak the language,’” Father Salazar said.

“He said, ‘Come on. Don’t you trust in God?’” Father Salazar said.

That convinced him, he said. And would carry him through.

“I remember the first day (in Kansas City). I was nervous, anxious and afraid, but my trust was in the Lord who called me and chose me,” Father Salazar said.

Bishop Robert W. Finn greets Father Darvin Salazar. (Nick Befort Photography)

He quickly met Bishop Finn and Father Rocha, who not only put him at ease, but assured him they had complete faith and trust that God was calling Father Salazar.

His first challenge was to learn English. Father Salazar accomplished that in just 18 months, thanks to the monks and faculty at Conception Seminary College, and some extra help from heaven.

“The Holy Spirit is the one who worked hard to help me out,” he said.

Father Salazar was able to pass the standard Test of English as a Foreign Language and enroll at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., where he would earn his Master of Divinity degree.

Father Salazar also had to adapt to the culture of the United States.

“We people from Latin America have different manners and ways of life,” Father Salazar said. But again, he saw that as a challenge, not an obstacle.

“Coming to the United States was a great opportunity to discover that each country is different and that our mission is to learn good things from each other,” Father Salazar said.

He was also quickly accepted by Spanish-speaking families in Kansas City who took him under their wings, so much so that his parents who came to Kansas City last December to see him ordained to the transitional diaconate were impressed.

“They were astonished to see how kindly and lovely the people treat me here, and treated them at that time,” he said.

“I know that I could not walk this journey to priesthood alone,” Father Salazar said.

“Every day I feel in my heart the happiness and love of many people who pray for me, who send me cards, who call me, and further more people who never leave me alone,” he said.

“To all of them, I have only a few words to say: Que Dios siempre les bendiga abundamente y recompense por todo lo que ustedes han hecho por mi,” Father Salazar said.

“May God always bless and reward you abundantly for everything you have done for me.”

Rev. Ian Murphy: Ordination of her grandson was a special moment for a special lady

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:02:03 +0000

Bishop Robert W. Finn anoints the hands of the new priest. (Nick Befort photo)

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — In a cathedral glowing with the pride of family and friends May 19, no one shined more than Fran Murphy.

At 95 years old, she got to see her son, Msgr. Robert Murphy, vest her grandson, Father Ian Murphy, as one of six newly ordained priests of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

And although he credits his entire family, including Uncle Bob, for nurturing what for him was a very early call from God to the priesthood, Grandma gets most of the credit.

“My grandmother is a huge point of inspiration,” Father Murphy said.

“She always felt that my great-grandmother was disappointed that she had married my grandfather, Arthur Robert Murphy IV,” he said.

“My great-grandparents really wanted two nuns and a priest out of their three children,” he said. “My two great-aunts joined the convent with the Sisters of St. Joseph, but my grandfather had other plans.”

But sometimes, God multiplies when it looks like he is subtracting.

“Their first son, Arthur Robert Murphy V, seemed to fulfill my great-grandmother’s desire to have a priest in the family,” Father Murphy said. “It seems with patience to another generation, there will now be two.”

Father Murphy said he began to hear his call to the priesthood extremely early in his life, almost as soon as he entered grade school.

“I was an altar boy all during my grade school years and loved every minute of it,” he said. “We lived close enough to the church that I would get called often to serve funerals during the summer months or called out of class during the school day.”

Having the gregarious Msgr. Murphy, now the vicar general of the diocese in which the new Father Murphy will serve, in the family only made the call stronger and clearer even to a young boy.

“Having my uncle around made the priesthood even more real and present in my life,” he said.

On top of that, his family always welcomed priests into their home, no matter where that was.

“We moved around a little bit when I was growing up, and wherever we went, my mother would always make sure the parish priests felt welcome in coming over and just taking it easy,” he said.

“This provided more opportunities for me just to have priests around,” Father Murphy said. “I admired each one of these men and fortunately still keep in contact with many of them.”

Surrounded by priests and growing up in a strong Catholic family, for him, hearing the call, came as naturally as breathing.

“The priesthood was just a part of my life, so not only do I have these priests to thank, but also my parents for making the faith not just a part of our life but the very essence of it,” Father Murphy said.

It wasn’t like a little boy telling his mother than he wanted to be a major league pitcher or an astronaut when he grew up. She took him seriously, and told him to seek the advice of his uncle on their next visit to his then-parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Joseph.

That was a moment he will never forget, Father Murphy said.

Bishop Robert W. Finn prepares to lay hands to ordain Father Ian Murphy. (Nick Befort photography)

“I was eight when I went for a walk with my uncle and officially told him that I wanted to be a priest,” he said. “His response to me was that if I did my part and prayed, the Lord would take care of the rest.”

But there was one problem.

“He was a priest of (the Diocese) of Kansas City-St. Joseph and we lived in St. Louis,” Father Murphy said. “I wanted to be a priest with him.”

So he prayed. And the Lord took care of it.

“The irony is that not only did we move back to Kansas City before I started high school, but the walk with my uncle took place by the river in downtown St. Joseph, and my first assignment after ordination to the diaconate was at Cathedral Parish only blocks from where that conversation took place,” he said.

His parents moved into St. Thomas More Parish, and the future Father Murphy enrolled at Rockhurst High School where he found even more help in discerning a call that was growing even stronger.

“I was never met with anything but full support from any of the faculty I encountered over my four years there,” Father Murphy said. “I enjoyed my high school years immensely and have found that friendships made there have turned into lifelong friendships.”

He knew what he had to do next.

“I decided to enter seminary right after high school to begin serious discernment without other distraction,” he said. “I had felt the call since I was a boy and I owed it to God to give him some time in the seminary.”

Father Murphy and his classmate Father Benjamin Kneib also hold a distinction together.

They are the last two seminarians accepted by Bishop Emeritus Raymond J. Boland in 2004, and began seminary together that fall, months before Bishop Boland’s retirement, at Conception Seminary College.

Once there and on his own for the first time in his life, questions began to crop up.

“I never had any real doubts,” Father Murphy said. “My only question in my vocation was more of a struggle adjusting to seminary life. This was really just a couple of months of being uneasy with this new life, but through the help of a senior from the Diocese of Tulsa, I realized that my call was to the priesthood, not the seminary. I unpacked for God and began my four years of study there.”

Through his seminary years, Father Murphy learned a Gospel lesson — he didn’t really choose to be a priest. God chose him. And once God calls, he doesn’t forget.

“Prayer and sacraments give me strength to take on this wonderful life of the priest,” Father Murphy said.

“Simplicity in life and priesthood is the overall goal,” he said. “We live this life to seek our own salvation and the priesthood adds the task of the salvation of souls that are placed in the priest’s pastoral care.”

Father Murphy said his ordination is just a beginning.

“My desire is to grow more and more to live the life of Christ and to be a man in the world, but not of the world,” he said.

And already knowing the fraternity of priests of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph who have served with his uncle for decades, Father Murphy said he is humbled to join them.

“I must always be able to rely on my brother priests for continued strength and perseverance,” Father Murphy said. “Priestly fraternity is essential in this day and age.”

Rev. Benjamin Kneib: Torn by call to service, new priest still chose the few and the proud

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:49:15 +0000

Bishop Robert W. Finn greets newly ordained Father Benjamin Kneib. (Nick Befort photo)

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — Father Benjamin Kneib had long heard a call to service, even if it meant laying down his life for others.

But he didn’t know what kind of service.

“Around my first year in high school, I became interested in the possibility of a career in the military,” said Father Kneib, one of six men ordained to the priesthood May 19 in the diocese’s largest single ordination since 1982.

“I thought I might have a vocation to the priesthood, but was willing to consider this other path also,” he said. “I didn’t see the two to be that distinct foundationally.

“As I got to my last year of high school, I had almost made up my mind to enlist, going so far as to meet with a recruiter,” he said. “I was going to enlist in the Marine Corps. None of my family had ever served in the Corps until my brother later. The plan was to start at the bottom and enlist as a routine foot soldier.”

But that thought of a lifetime of service as a priest that he first felt in grade school, growing up in St. Joseph, wouldn’t leave him alone.

“When I was around 7 I had my own little ‘Mass kit’ which I would use to ‘celebrate’ Mass,” he said. “I remember using vanilla wafers as hosts.”

That seed, he said, was nurtured by his family, and especially his mother.

“My mother would take us kids to daily Mass at which I would often serve,” he said. “I would watch all things the priest did and picture myself in his position.

“I was raised to hold the priesthood in high regard and came to know many good priests growing up,” Father Kneib said.

Still the decision between priest or Marine wasn’t easy, as well as his own doubts of whether he was good enough to be either, especially a priest.

“Both pursuits are performed best when done for the sake of others,” Father Kneib said.

“From a spiritual warfare standpoint, priesthood is like serving on the front lines of society,” he said. “I always had many people tell me I would be a good priest, yet I had my doubts. It was difficult at that point in my life to see myself being able to handle the important ministry of a priest in preaching or being the one to whom people look in times of crisis.”

So Father Kneib got some help — from both heaven and earth.

“I decided some saintly intervention wouldn’t hurt so I began daily recitation of a vocation prayer to St. John Bosco that I would know what to do,” he said.

Father Kneib also sought advice from Father Vincent Rogers, his pastor at St. James Parish.

“He echoed what others had said and told me he thought I might have a vocation,” Father Kneib said. “It was more just the attitude and approach he took rather than the words he said. Knowing he approved and encouraged something I was interested in went a long way.”

Father Kneib credits both St. John Bosco and Father Rogers for getting him to a “Come and See” weekend retreat for potential seminarians at Conception Seminary College in the spring of 2004, just as he was completing his high school diploma.

“Part of the weekend included Eucharistic adoration,” he said.

“As I knelt there, I couldn’t help but feel the answer I had been praying for was being revealed to me,” Father Kneib recalled.

“I needed to enter the seminary, but I still had inhibitions, so I sort of boldly made a deal with God. I said, ‘If I do this, you have to help me,’” he said.

“At that moment, I felt a great relief and peace within,” Father Kneib said. “It was as if God had responded, ‘I accept.’”

He arranged to meet then-Bishop Raymond J. Boland for an interview and acceptance into the seminary.

As he was waiting, future Father Ian Murphy, who was also ordained May 19, came out of the bishop’s office following his interview and acceptance. The two seminarians, the last accepted by Bishop Boland before his retirement in 2005, struck up an instant friendship and would remain together every step of the way to ordination.

“We were both fresh out of high school and I think a little unsure of what was next,” Father Kneib said. “Having a brother seminarian and now a brother priest who grew up with me and has experienced and learned alongside me all the same things I did is truly a blessing.”

Father Kneib said that Bishop Boland quickly put him at ease.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “He was very welcoming and even exhibited some of his Irish wit. We run into each other at diocesan events and he always reminds me that he keeps me in prayer still and looks forward to me joining him in the ranks of the priesthood. It’s both humbling and flattering to know that he still keeps me and other seminarians in mind and wishes the best.”

Father Kneib said he only made the personal commitment to try Conception Seminary College for a year. He said he was still haunted by thoughts of whether he was good enough to be a priest, especially as he explored the writings of the saints, including St. Alphonse Liguori.

“It made me take pause and reflect on my own character flaws and perceptions,” he said.

Newly ordained Father Benjamin Kneib concelebrated the ordination Mass with Bishop Robert W. Finn. (Nick Befort photo )

But as he progressed though his seminary studies, Father Kneib said he came to realize even more deeply that his call to priesthood wasn’t about him. It was about service to others.

“As a flawed human being, I am unworthy and it’s not hard to think of all the ways I could fail,” he said.

“What has been helpful is to remember that Christ has called me nonetheless to focus not on what I can do myself, but more on what he will do through me,” Father Kneib said.

“This has been demonstrated to me more than once,” he said. “Even in my brief preaching experience, I’ve decided to add or change something that came to me at the 11th hour out of nowhere. Afterwards, I’d have people come up and comment on that exact point and say how much it helped them. That’s how the Holy Spirit works.”

Father Kneib said his formation involved more than book work. He spent one summer working for the Bishop Sullivan Center, installing room air-conditioners in its Project ElderCool program for the elderly and disabled, and helped prepare and serve hot evening meals at St. James Place.

“That job allowed me to experience firsthand the poverty and plight of many residents that we often only get to read about in the paper,” he said.

“Seeing in person the conditions that people lived in was sobering,” Father Kneib said. “Working there almost every day made a difference in how I perceived the service I was performing because you get to know people, talk to them, hear their stories, and there is a connection formed that might be missed if I had only helped out once a week or less.”

Father Kneib said he got a pleasant and unexpected surprise when Bishop Robert W. Finn told him that his first assignment would be as associate pastor of St. Andrew Parish in Gladstone, now pastored by Father Vincent Rogers.

“Little did Father Rogers know that when he encouraged me to enter the seminary, he was helping his future assistant,” Father Kneib said.

“I look forward to the assignment and serving with him,” he said.

Rev. Adam Johnson: God, with help of priests, shaped a ‘vessel of clay, not gold’

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:56:48 +0000

Bishop Robert W. Finn blesses the hands of Father Adam Johnson. (Nick Befort photo)

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — The National Football League’s loss is the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph’s gain.

Those were Father Adam Johnson’s two career choices when he was in grade school.

“I talked about wanting to be a priest, but at that age, I also said I would become an NFL quarterback,” said Father Johnson, one of six priests ordained May 19 in the diocese’s largest single priestly ordination in 30 years.

Pardon his family or friends if they didn’t take either young notion too seriously, and even he didn’t fully realize then that he was being called.

“If you were to ask me back then, I would have said there was a higher chance of me being drafted by the NFL than there was of my becoming a priest,” he said.

But the call was there and wouldn’t go away.

“It was not until I was in college that the idea of being a priest entered my mind in a serious way,” he said.

He credits the friends he made and the chaplains he met at the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Newman Center for helping him hear and respond to the call to priesthood.

“I had a great group of friends who were passionate about growing in their relationship with Christ,” Father Johnson said. “Those were incredibly important years in my life and in my discernment.”

Father Johnson’s call got so strong that he had to leave those friends and MU behind, and follow it into the seminary in 2005, becoming one of the very first candidates accepted into the seminary by Bishop Robert W. Finn, who succeeded Bishop Raymond J. Boland that spring.

It was also the year that Blessed Pope John Paul II died, ending his long and historic reign.

“To this day, he remains a personal hero of mine,” Father Johnson said.

Father Johnson said earlier that year, he read “Gift and Mystery,” Blessed John Paul’s 1996 memoir of his 50 years as a priest.

“His priestly witness captured and embodied my own desire for the priesthood,” Father Johnson said. “He expressed to the world all the amazing things that can happen when you begin to follow Christ.”

His call was also nurtured by the witness of the priests right in front of him over the years at his home St. Therese Parish in Parkville — Father James Hart, Father Michael Roach, Father Patrick Tobin and Father Joseph Cisetti.

“They are all wonderful pastors,” he said.

During summer assignments in parishes through his seminary years, he learned that those priests weren’t the exception in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. They were the rule.

“Father (Stephen) Cook, Father (Matthew) Rotert, Msgr. (Robert) Gregory, and Msgr. (Bradley) Offutt. Each priest, in his own way, has shown me something unique about the priesthood,” he said. “It has been amazing to observe so many priests cultivating those gifts in service of Christ and the church.”

Bishop Robert W. Finn prepares to lay hands and ordain Father Adam Johnson. (Nick Befort photo)

His last summer assignment before ordination could have been difficult, but it wasn’t. He was assigned to St. Patrick Parish in Kansas City, north, just as a new pastor, Father Justin Hoye, was coming to the parish.

“Father Justin was so good about taking time each day to explain to me the various day-to-day aspects of priesthood,” he said. “His love for the people of God is evident in the way he cares for his parishioners.”

But he chose Father Robert Cameron to assist him in vesting at the ordination Mass.

“Over the last many years, Father Cameron has been a close friend and inspiring figure,” Father Johnson said. “He embodies joy and charity, and I believe joy is one of the most important virtues a priest can possess. Where you find authentic joy, the Holy Spirit is present.”

His prayers and thoughts at his ordination also included a priest who wasn’t there, Msgr. William Lyons who recently died. A priest of St. Louis, Msgr. Lyons served in his last years at North American College in Rome where he was spiritual director to several seminarians, including Father Johnson.

“I had gone to him so many times for confession that when it came time for us to practice hearing confessions, I found myself doing an impression of Msgr. Lyons,” Father Johnson said. “His prayerfulness, his tenderness, his great sense of humor were all infectious.”

Still, with all that support, seminary life wasn’t easy, Father Johnson said. He even took one year off to think it over.

“There are guys who knew for years that this is what they wanted to do and who journey through seminary without a doubt in their minds,” he said. “I am not one of those guys.”

During that year off and working at St. Gabriel Parish in Kansas City, Father Johnson also felt the call to have a wife, children and a family.

He knew by that time that there was just one way to find out.

“I brought these desires for a family before God and asked him to let me know if this was God’s way of telling me it was the life he most wanted for me, or if God was asking me to offer to him (to give up) a potential family life in order to serve the church as a priest of Jesus Christ.”

From page 6

Father Johnson said through prayer, he found not only the answer, but peace with his decision, and with his commitment to celibacy.

“I firmly believe that celibacy is one of the most beautiful aspects of priesthood, the willingness to come before God and lay down everything before him, holding nothing back,” he said.

That year at St. Gabriel also confirmed to him how important parish priests are to families in the parish, he said.

“The experience helped me put my theological studies into context, bringing a practical reality to what parish priesthood can be like in our diocese,” Father Johnson said. “After that year away, I felt God was inviting me back.”

But not just back to anywhere. Father Johnson finished his last four years of seminary study in Rome.

“My time in Rome has been a truly amazing experience,” he said.

“Having classmates from all over the world has given me a greater insight into just how universal the Catholic faith is,” Father Johnson said. “Daily walking the ancient streets, where so many saints have walked, visiting magnificent churches, living so close to the Holy Father, all these have deepened my love for the church.”

And there was one more experience he had in Rome, as an assigned tour guide for pilgrims through the ancient necropolis beneath St. Peter’s Basilica.

“The tour ends at the gravesite of St. Peter, where the bones of the great apostle remain encased in glass,” Father Johnson said. “The opportunity to visit regularly the bones of St. Peter and to share the story of his great witness has certainly given me a deeper appreciation for one of my favorite apostles who followed Jesus with such passion, and whose humanity is so vividly on display in the Gospels.”

All the saints, living and dead, have been an inspiration to him, but Father Johnson said he wouldn’t be a priest without the example and witness of one particular person — his mother, Diane Johnson.

“When an infant is baptized, the priest will tell the parents, ‘You are the first of teachers. Be the best of teachers,’” Father Johnson said.

“I would not be where I am without the witness of my own mother who raised me in the faith,” he said. “She is the type of person who is always looking out for the needs of others, continually putting them before herself.

“Without her example of charity, the Gospel message would feel abstract and unattainable,” Father Johnson said. “I am truly blessed.”

Rev. Adam Haake: Christian Brother would not give up on future priest

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:50:57 +0000

Newly ordained Father Adam Haake offers a first blessing to Bishop Robert W. Finn. (Nick Befort photography)

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — If his Archbishop O’Hara High School classmates voted on a “least likely to be a priest,” Father Adam Haake might have won in a landslide.

“There wasn’t much room for God,” said Father Haake, one of six priests ordained on May 19 in the largest single priestly ordination in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in 30 years.

“For the better part of my time in high school, I became swept away in with the culture we live in,” he said. “I don’t know how I heard God’s call with how loud the radio blared in my car.”

But he could hear Christian Brother Douglas Hawkins, a fixture for years at Kansas City’s La Sallian tradition high school, and one who is known to generations of O’Hara students for throwing his vocation net wide.

Father Haake said Brother Douglas saw the future priest inside that Father Haake couldn’t see himself, not that the young man was in any mood to listen.

“I was asked a couple of times by Brother Douglas, in a poignant way, whether I was listening to God’s call, my vocation, and whether or not I considered the priesthood,” Father Haake said.

“I think I actually laughed at the idea,” Father Haake said.

It wasn’t the first time he heard it. While he was growing up at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Raytown, Father Haake had several of the parish priests there suggest that he might have the qualities to be a good priest.

But he’d hear none of that, not even at a very young age. Like many boys, Father Haake was certain he was being called to be a professional athlete.

“As a kid, I was happiest as a Catholic when the priest’s homily was short and we’d be home in time for the Chiefs’ game, or when it was a ‘doughnut’ Sunday,” he said. “My heroes wore baseball jerseys, not Roman collars.”

It wasn’t until he was out on his own for the first time, as a student at Missouri State University, that he finally claimed as his own the Catholic faith that his parents, his teachers, his priests and Brother Douglas had worked so hard to nurture in him.

On the Springfield campus, lonely and without friends, Father Haake said he discovered a community at the Newman Center who were no different than he, except for one important thing: They were happy.

“In my young mind, happiness and religion couldn’t be in the same sentence,” Father Haake said.

Wanting to know what all his new friends were so happy about, Father Haake said the Newman Center chaplain Father Len Brown pointed to shelves filled with books and suggested that if he really wanted to know what happiness was, read up on the lives of the saints.

He devoured those books.

“I was miraculously introduced into the lives of St. Padre Pio, St. Faustina, St. Bernadette, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. John of the Cross, Archbishop Fulton Sheen as well as the living saints of our time like Blessed John Paul II,” he said.

“The saints are the best translation of the Gospel — they live it,” he said. “In these witnesses, I learned that God uniquely and unconditionally loves me and calls me as I am. Every saint starts off as a sinner, so there was hope for me.”

That realization led him to do something that, in high school, he might have thought he’d never do again.

“Life’s lessons relentlessly pushed me into the chapel near the campus in those first months at MS, and the inertia of that push didn’t stop until I plopped on my knees in the confessional box,” Father Haake said.

It was then, and under the Father Brown’s continued spiritual guidance, that Father Haake said he learned that he would never be happy unless he heard what God was calling him to, and he would never hear that until he gave his live over to God.

“I was finally open to allowing God’s merciful will to break into my life, and I began to get on my knees and pray for his will to fully lead me,” he said.

Father Haake said he continued to make friends at the Newman Center, friendships, he said, he will cherish for the rest of his life.

Those friends took him along for the annual Washington, D.C., March for Life in 2005, when he found himself doing something else that he wouldn’t have imagined doing in his wildest dreams just a few years earlier.

“At the youth Mass with about 15,000 Catholics filling the building, (Washington, D.C.) Cardinal Theodore McCarrick asked all those men who were thinking about the priesthood to stand up,” Father Haake recalled.

“I stood up,” he said.

“That was my first public witness to the call,” he said. “What pushed me up that day was the staggering realization that so many men and women in our culture need Christ’s mercy in a very tangible way. I knew that mercy, and I wanted to be an instrument of that mercy.”

The next day, joining thousands of people in the annual March for Life, his decision was cast in stone.

“Marching toward the White House, it put me shoulder to shoulder with the Mystical Body of Christ,” Father Haake said. “I found joy in coming together with people from all across the nation, and many who weren’t even Catholic.”

Father Adam Haake embraces Bishop Robert W. Finn. (Nick Befort photo)

Father Haake said he not only heard God’s call, he had to act on it.

“St. Faustina taught me that my vocation is born, swims and survives in the incredible torrent of Christ’s infinite mercy, his pierced side and nowhere else,” Father Haake said.

“I discovered that my fundamental call was to be a saint. As soon as I swam into the deep in this call to be a saint, I quickly heard the call to be a priest,” he said.

Father Haake said he also quickly learned that God wouldn’t leave him to sink or swim alone.

“He is present and gives us all we need in the church, especially in the sacraments,” Father Haake said. “God knows me better than I do.”

And God also sends people to help him along the way, including Brother Douglas.

“I am grateful to be one of a wide fleet of O’Hara alumni whom Brother Douglas stays in contact with,” Father Haake said.

“I think I have received a note from him nearly once a month for years now,” he said. “He is always seeking to pass on some form of sage advice, a joke, and tidbits about things Catholic.

“Brother Douglas was never put off by how far I had drifted in high school. He was quietly Christ in my life,” Father Haake said. “In him, Christ was able to walk with me through the green and gold halls of O’Hara, even if I didn’t have eyes to see it at the time.

“Let us pray more men are called to be Christian Brothers,” Father Haake said.

Rev. Kevin Drew: Years of experience helped lead new priest to his call

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:16:45 +0000

Father Kevin Drew receives a blessing from a priest. (Nick Befort photography)

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — Talk about having your back covered.

There were 189 years worth of priests standing at the altar of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish and concelebrating with Father Kevin Drew May 20 as he celebrated his first Mass, one day after his ordination as a priest of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

There was his pastor, Msgr. William Blacet, who completed 65 years as a priest in December.

Then there were Father Drew’s uncles, Father Carl Schmidt and Father Anthony Schmidt, brothers who were ordained on the same day 62 years ago as priests of the Diocese of Peoria, Ill.

They were the priests who inspired him to hear and answer God’s call, though it took him a while.

At age 46, Father Drew is the “old man” among his ordination Class of 2012, the largest single ordination ceremony in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in 30 years.

And although he will be challenged to match them in quantity, the quality of their service has set a high standard.

He also learned through his uncles that you could be a regular guy and a priest at the same time.

“Growing up and attending reunions and family gatherings, it was a regular thing to have priests around,” Father Drew said.

And he learned the value of persistence.

A year younger but inseparable from his older brother Anthony, Carl Schmidt would tag along with his big brother to the one-room school across the road in rural Illinois.

“After a few instances of this, the teacher let Carl stay and if he could keep up with the work, he could remain in school,” Father Drew said.

“I think there were nine kids in the school at the time, and six of them were Schmidts,” he said.

The two brothers went to Quincy College together, then to Cardinal Glennon College in St. Louis, then to Kenrich School of Theology, where Father Drew would graduate some 62 years later.

Father Drew said his uncles kept working on him.

“In 1998, after my father’s funeral, Uncle Anthony put his Roman collar and his jacket on me and someone took a picture. I thought, ‘What is he up to?’” Father Drew said. “Their witness and presence, not to mention their kindness to me, has been very influential,” he said.

But they didn’t plant the seed of vocation. They nurtured it, Father Drew said.

Father Drew credits his parents and his home parish in Quincy, Ill., historic St. Peter, for handing to him the gift of faith that made his priesthood possible..

“I was blessed to have two faithful Catholics for parents,” he said. “My mom and dad always worked together, never against each other, always complementing the other with their own special gifts.

“I learned how to be a man by watching how my mother and father treated each other,” Father Drew said.

St. Peter Parish in Quincy was once led by Father Augustine Tolton, who in 1886 was the first African-American ordained as a priest in the United States. A former slave, his sainthood cause is now under consideration.

“When I was in school in the late 70’s, the boys started serving at the altar when we were in sixth grade,” Father Drew said.

“Not only was it a rite of passage, it gave one a taste and a feel for the priestly duty of offering the Sacrifice of the Mass,” he said.

“Looking back, I can see the genius of it,” he said.

“If one is attracted to service at the altar, then that service needs to be fostered by parents teachers and priests,” Father Drew said. “If God is truly calling a young man, then a solid logical progression can take place: altar boy, seminary, acolyte, deacon, priesthood. I’d say it has been an effective way of garnering vocations throughout the history of Christianity.”

But it really wasn’t for some 30 years later, after on a whim he decided to drop into Our Lady of Good Counsel for a noon weekday Mass, that Father Drew said he answered his own call.

Father Drew said he was on his way to lunch in Westport about 10 years ago when he took a detour.

“It was a Tuesday because I was going to get a slice of pizza at Joe’s in the back of Kelly’s Tavern because they had $1 slices on Tuesdays,” Father Drew said.

Newly ordained Father Kevin Drew helps concelebrate the Mass of Ordination May 19 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. (Nick Befort photography)

“Driving by Good Counsel, something that day made me look at the sign. It said, ‘Noon Mass,’” he recalled.

“I had driven by it many times and always just assumed it was some kind of Protestant church,” Father Drew said.

So on a whim, he decided park his car and skip the $1 pizza. Inside, the venerable Msgr. Blacet was celebrating.

“What a breath of fresh air,” Father Drew said. “To escape from the noisy, busy world and soak in some silence, some reverence, some prayer over lunch hour.”

He was hooked on Our Lady of Good Counsel, and Msgr. Blacet soon helped reel him into the seminary.

“He has been a gentle guiding hand and a true spiritual father for me this past decade,” Father Drew said.

One problem he hasn’t had to overcome was being some 20 years older than his seminary classmates.

Bishop Robert W. Finn personally took Father Drew to Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., which is for “older” vocations.

“He was very fatherly and kind,” Father Drew recalled. “He was also really humble and I could tell he cared about a man’s seminary formation.”

But he went instead to Kenrick in St. Louis, not far from his hometown, with younger seminarians.

“I can still beat most of them in a race,” he said of his classmates, no brag just fact. “Ask (classmate and Father) Ben Kneib. He witnessed me almost single-handedly bring the Theology school back against the Cardinal Glennon College football team a few years back. I was quarterback. Ben was a lineman.”

Father Drew said he will still depend on “linemen” to block for him, especially the three that were with him on the altar at that first Mass, just as they were with him every step of the way through seminary.

“The vessel is clay, not gold,” Father Drew said. “God takes a man and forms him through tough years of seminary. And help is needed. God puts people in your path to assist you.”

Clearing Father Drew’s path were 189 years of priestly experience.

“I’d relate a problem to my uncles or Msgr. Blacet, and they’d tell me a story with the same scenario that happened 50, 60 years ago,” he said.

“This always gave me a great perspective that some things never change,” he said.

“The priestly life, like any vocation, isn’t always about solving problems, but enduring them and persevering through them by offering them to Christ.”

Feeding Minds

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:51:17 +0000

Members of the St. Charles School sixth grade book club show off the 1,868 children’s books a recent book drive, Feed Your Mind, collected for the St. Charles food pantry. Books will be handed out to children visiting the food pantry with their families and to families with children at home who want books. (Marty Denzer/Key photo)

By Marty Denzer
Catholic Key Reporter

KANSAS CITY — Sometimes a simple, good idea will reap big rewards. A group of sixth graders at St. Charles Borromeo School discovered that a few weeks ago, and are still amazed.

The students, members of a book club sponsored by the school, wanted to take on a leadership role among their schoolmates, as well as share their love of books with others.

Maybe give books to children who had none? After all, book club member Ryan Barber said, “We all like to read. It’s brain power!”

They brought their ideas to Mary Omecene, principal of St. Charles, who suggested collecting books to give to children who visit the parish food pantry with their parents. The book club grabbed the suggestion and ran with it.

The kids had participated in many of the food drives sponsored four times each year by the parish school to stock the food pantry shelves. They borrowed the drive idea and decided to hold a book drive to collect books for food pantry clients with children.

Omecene reminded the book club that the project was theirs and they would have to get the word out, promote it and manage it.

The club members, Maddie McCormick, Ryan, Chelsie Shepherd, Grace Laird, Brian Hennessy, Marisa Thomas, Justin Galang, Stephanie Pearson and Tomas Park, decided that before they did anything else, the book drive needed a name.

“We all had ideas,” Brian said. “We wanted something that would relate to the food pantry. I came up with Feed Your Mind and everybody liked it.”

Armed with a name for their book drive, the kids made posters and hung them around the school, went to every classroom and spoke about the “Feed Your Mind” drive, and even spoke at every Mass at St. Charles Church one weekend. Bins were placed around the school and in the church vestibule. The book club set a goal of collecting 300 books, and offered an incentive to their school mates.

Chelsie said, “We held a contest. The class that brought in the most books during the two week collection time would get a pizza party and an out of uniform day. Mrs. Omecene said that would get everybody interested!”

Books started coming in, piling up and up. In a very short time, the drive had surpassed its goal and the books had to be stored in a storage closet near the food pantry to prevent avalanches of books from tables and shelves.

One Friday when the rest of the school was dismissed at noon, the book club began the task of sorting and counting the books, a 4-hour job. In the middle of counting, they had an opportunity to see some fruits of their labor. Several families brought children when visiting the food pantry and the sixth graders handed out a few of the books to them.

Chelsie said, “It was fun. We gave a two-year old girl a copy of The Little Mermaid. She was so excited, she hugged the book! Another little girl got a copy of Rainbow Fish. She spoke English, and her parents didn’t so she started reading the book to them, translating it into Spanish while they were getting their food.”

Maddie added, “The kids are all real excited, and so are their parents and grandparents.”

When the counting and sorting were done the tally showed that assistant principal Pam Serrone’s eighth grade class brought in 1,200 books. Within the two week time limit “Feed Your Mind” collected 1,868 books. And still the books came. “We received 134 books after the deadline,” Maddie said.

The book club, a brain-child of Chelsie and Maddie, is still in its first year. Chelsie said, “We both like to read, and one day we started talking about clubs and decided we’d like to start a book club.” Facilitated by Lisa Wade McCormick, Maddie’s mother, a children’s author and St. Charles School volunteer, the club meets once a week, during lunch and recess.

Omecene said she was impressed by and proud of the book club and the “Feed Your Mind” book drive. “Here at St. Charles,” she said, “we hold four food drives yearly, like the soup-er bowl drive during Catholic Schools Week, to stock our food pantry and help out Bishop Sullivan Center. Catholic Teaching on social justice tells us that everyone has the right to clothing, food, shelter and, yes, reading. Our students get it. All of their service projects are done in a spirit of sharing.”

The food pantry is open three afternoons each week and books will be handed out to children throughout the summer, Omecene said. “We’ll let our food pantry patrons know we have age appropriate children’s books if they want for their children at home. We may be able to share some of the books with Bishop Sullivan Center at the end of the summer.”

Chelsie nodded decidedly. “We’ll do this again, both the book club and the book drive.” Eight other heads nodded. “I was afraid at first that we wouldn’t get very many books,” said Tomas, “maybe 100. But we received so many!”

Justin said he was proud of helping put books in the food pantry for the children. More nods and smiles from a group of sixth graders who wanted to share one of their loves with children in poverty, a love of books.

Graduates: Continue encounters with people and books

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:31:16 +0000

By Santiago Ramos

Maybe it doesn’t make sense for somebody who is still in school to be dishing out advice to recent college graduates. The fact that I am still exiled in Ph.D. Land perhaps disqualifies me from telling anyone anything useful about how to make it out in the “real world.”

Maybe. But I’m gonna do it anyway. My advice doesn’t have anything to do about careers. It has to do with books – something which, as a grad student, I ought to know something about.

You don’t need me to repeat what all the other speakers have already told you: You are ready for anything. Yes, you are. College has prepared you for the workforce.

Let me instead address that nagging doubt: “Maybe I should have paid more attention in philosophy/English/theology/history class… I wish I had done all the reading… I wish I had thought more about the meaning of life. Because while I know a lot about business/nursing/finance/engineering, I still wonder sometimes whether I really know anything about love/God/life/happiness…”

I know the feeling. I had it, too.

Here is my advice, in two parts: 1. Read. 2. Keep track of the people who recommend books to you.

We cannot decide nor foresee the people whom we will meet in life, the people who will change us for the better or the worse, and the people whom we will love. The same goes for the books we will read. Both — books and people — are instrumental for finding our way in life. A book, anyway, is only an indirect way of meeting a person. So, given that you are already likely to seek out new friends and a husband or wife, I will advise you to do something you might not be thinking about doing, having just finished four grueling years of study: Seek out books. Read!

Let me tell you a story which shows just how important books can be in a person’s life.

This is the story of how the great American monk and poet, Thomas Merton, got his education. He talks about it in his memoir, The Seven Storey Mountain (a book you should definitely read). Merton was something of a literary celebrity in the United States in the 1950s and 60s. His memoir inspired nationwide interest in monasticism; his writings on war and peace, faith and modern life, and sundry other topics, earned him a place as one of the top American Catholic writers of the 20th century.

The key moments in Merton’s education all had to do with particular books that he came across. He read a collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry while suffering from a blood infection during prep school (the book was a gift from one from one of his teachers). Hopkins’ poetry opened up the world of poetry to young Merton.

He read and reviewed Aldous Huxley’s essay collection titled Ends and Means as an upperclassman at Columbia University (recommended by his best friend, Robert Lax). That book convinced Merton that it is impossible to live life without a sense of the mystical and of the supernatural.

He read half of Etienne Gilson’s The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, which he picked up on a whim and almost tossed out the window of a bus after he realized that it was a Catholic book. He never did finish it, but what he read of it left him with the impression that the belief in God is probably more reasonable and respectable than he had previously believed.

A Buddhist monk named Bramachari, who for some reason was hanging out with Merton and his buddies during his college days, recommended to Merton that he read St. Augustine’s Confessions. Merton loved it; he could relate to Augustine’s restlessness as he searched for the truth.

One day, as he was reading a collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ letters, Merton decided to become a Catholic.

According to Merton, each of these books was instrumental to his journey from being a Communist, libertine, trust-fund baby, to becoming a poet and monk – that is, to finding his path in life, to finding freedom and happiness.

And none of those books were assigned for class. Rather, they were usually the gift or recommendation of a friend. This is why you should keep track of the people who recommend books to you. Those people might end up being the most important friends you make in your life.

For Merton, those people were the classmates, teachers, and one random Buddhist monk. In the end, the people were more important than the books. The books broadened Merton’s mind. The people broadened his mind, AND they made sure he did not walk alone in life.

My own experience has been similar to Merton’s. I became educated, or rather, am still becoming educated, by meeting and following good teachers who were not usually formally my teachers. No official curriculum made my education automatic – in fact, I had to tolerate a lot of boring classes, and bad semesters when I personally failed to do any meaningful reading. Yet a few professors and older friends told me about some good books, and I read them. It isn’t a systematic endeavor. But it works.

Call it Providence or call it luck, but either way, education is a gift.

So don’t worry if you feel like you don’t know enough, or wasted too much time, or are lost in a dark wood. Don’t worry about your lack of education. Education is a gift. It comes to us as a surprise, through encounters with people and books.

Education is a gift. Ask for it. Reading is one way of asking.

Santiago Ramos is a graduate of Rockhurst University and is pursuing graduate studies at Boston College.

Father Guerric ordained at Conception Abbey

The Catholic Key — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:21:41 +0000

Newly ordained Benedictine Father Guerric Letter joins Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn for a photograph following his ordination ceremony May 17 at Conception Abbey. (Key photo/Jenny Huard)

By Jenny Huard
Special to The Catholic Key

Conception, Mo – May 22, 2012 – On Thursday, May 17 Brother Guerric Letter, O.S.B. was ordained Father Guerric by Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn.

Father Guerric, formerly Timothy Letter, 30, is the eleventh child of William and Elaine Letter of St. Lawrence parish in Navarino, Wis. Growing up on a dairy farm just outside of Green Bay, Father Guerric first felt the call to the priesthood when he was in the second grade. “I watched the priest at Mass, and thought it would be neat to take ordinary bread and wine and make it the body and blood of Christ.”

After graduating in 2000 from Bonduel High School, Father Guerric headed to Conception Seminary College as a seminarian for the Diocese of Green Bay. At the end of his sophomore year Father Guerric applied to enter the monastery and was accepted.

He professed his temporary vows in August of 2003 and solemn perpetual vows in 2006, making him a full fledged Benedictine monk and member of Conception Abbey. Father Guerric holds a bachelor’s in philosophy from Conception Seminary College and finished out his theological studies at St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in Indiana where he also received a Masters degree in Divinity.

Over the course of these past years, Father Guerric has enriched Conception Abbey through his service in a variety of areas. He has served as Assistant to the Kitchen Master, Assistant Alumni Director, Director of Student Activities, Master of Ceremonies, House Manager for the monastery, and Facilities Manager for the Abbey Guest Center. He is now looking forward to being back home at Conception and is excited about beginning this new chapter in his life.

“As a newly ordained priest it is good to have the stability of the monastery to help shape my priestly ministry.” When asked what he is looking forward to as a newly ordained priest Father Guerric answered, “I am looking forward to ministering the sacraments to people and working with them at their most vulnerable times in their lives. This is where ministry becomes a true blessing.” Father Guerric will be helping with special projects for the abbey business office, as well as working in the monastery kitchen, while also serving the local parishes on weekend assignments.