As Time Goes By

With this “Visit” we come to the first issue of our Catholic Missourian for the year 2009. It is certain that the memories of last year will remain with us for a long time. What a year it was! After more twists and turns than anyone could imagine, all of the political campaigning came to an end and newly elected and re-elected officeholders are preparing to enter government on the national, state and local scene.

Proclaiming “Christ our Hope,” Pope Benedict XVI visited our country last year on the occasion of the bicentennial of the founding of the Dioceses of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Bardstown (Louisville) and the establishment of Baltimore as an archdiocese. While in New York, the Pope addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of that body’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And of course, the whole world was preoccupied in the closing months of 2008 with the global effect of the collapse of financial structures since September.

With the year 2008, I also completed 40 years since my ordination as a priest. The road to ordination had begun for me when I entered the high school preparatory seminary over 50 years ago! It was just a simple interview with Father Bruckerhoff, the associate pastor of our parish, that put before me the opportunity to take the entrance exam for the seminary. And, as they say, the rest is history. Little did I realize that I was embarking on a journey that would take me through high school and college in the seminaries in St. Louis and then on to Rome. I arrived in Rome during the last session of the Second Vatican Council and would trek across the Eternal City every day to classes at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University.

Along with 64 classmates I was ordained to the Holy Priesthood at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 20, 1968. I returned to St. Louis as a parish priest in the summer of 1969. After almost 10 years in parish work, I received an appointment from Cardinal John J. Carberry of St. Louis to be his secretary, right before the historic double conclaves of 1978. So I accompanied the cardinal to the conclaves that elected Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II — just two months apart! After 13 years working for two archbishops (Cardinal Carberry and Archbishop John L. May), I became the pastor of St. Gerard Majella parish in Kirkwood; returned to work for another archbishop, now Cardinal Justin Rigali; and eleven-and-a-half years ago came to this beautiful Diocese of Jefferson City as your bishop.

And this whole journey began when this 13-year-old eighth-grader sat in the auditorium of the Prep Seminary in the winter of 1957 and took the entrance exam in a room filled with a couple hundred other applicants.