'He's a very humble person, very
spiritual'
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published September 15, 2006
Metro area When people ask him how he's doing, retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Walter J. Schoenherr has a response ready for them.
"I say, just wait until you get to be 86 and you'll find out," said Bishop Schoenherr with a smile during his homily at a Sunday Mass at St. William Parish, Walled Lake, in August.
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Photo by Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Bishop Walter J. Schoenherr stands outside his home at SeniorClergy Village in Livonia, where he enjoys working on his landscaping. | Sense of humor and all, Bishop Schoenherr who was relieved from administrative responsibilities as an auxiliary bishop and granted senior priest status by Cardinal Adam Maida in 1995 remains an active part of metro Detroit's Catholic community. St. William is just one parish he's recently helped out at, substituting for a vacationing pastor Fr. Michael Savikas.
"You have to let go as you grow in the Lord," the bishop told the congregation while reflecting on a reading from St. John's Gospel. "We don't keep looking to the past. We live now, in the present, day by day, moving to the future. So we go on and we always have Jesus with us."
Indeed, the bishop encounters a lot of Jesus now that he's a senior priest, he said in a later interview at his home at Senior Clergy Village in Livonia. Often, he said, senior priests feel that without the arduous tasks of administrating a parish or vicariate they've finally become fully able to live their ministry.
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Photo by Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Bishop Schoenherr, 86, holds his cross during theprocessional at an Aug. 27 Mass at St. William in Walled Lake. | Bishop Schoenherr himself was relieved of a giant administrative responsibility eleven years ago. As an auxiliary bishop, he oversaw a huge portion of the Archdiocese of Detroit, which included more than 100 parishes which meant he was shepherding more Catholics than there were in any other diocese in the state.
That was on top of sitting on various boards and committees for organizations throughout the archdiocese. Not to mention, either, the travels around the United States and to Europe that comes with being a bishop.
Now, though, living in a community with other senior priests, he has more time for prayer, reading and reflection but also plenty of opportunities for fellowship, and to administer the sacraments.
"I am pleasantly busy, in a good way," Bishop Schoenherr said. "I'm very happy to be here, because if I'm not out saying Mass either here or at a parish, then I'm having Mass with the priests here in the center."
Bishop Schoenherr especially likes the setup at the village. While he says each resident has a healthy degree of privacy, they also do a lot together. Each Tuesday, for example, about seven or eight priests gather and look over Scripture readings to prepare homilies for the weekend.
And there's always a place for each of them to say Mass.
On the Felician Sisters' campus alone on which Senior Clergy Village is situated there are seven chapels. The Felicians have a nursing home, hospice center, high school, university, and a motherhouse on the campus.
"We feel privileged and blest, because our senior priests continue to serve God's people in such a Christ-like commitment," said Felician Sr. Theresa Ciemerych, administrator at Senior Clergy Village.
She added that Bishop Schoenherr has been involved in "every phase of ministry" on the campus. The bishop, who sits on the board for Senior Clergy Village, even had a hand in designing the village.
"He is a good shepherd, generous with his time," she said. "He is esteemed and respected by his fellow priests and by all who come in contact with him
He's a very humble person, very spiritual."
Aside from administering sacraments on the Felician campus, there also are parishes around the archdiocese where increasingly busy pastors require vacations.
One of those pastors, Fr. Savikas, says it's a "tremendous blessing" to have the senior priests available.
"Without them, it would be so easy to be overwhelmed," he said. "And I think they bring balance, a wealth of experience and the people love them."
Fr. Savikas has Bishop Schoenherr to his parish, St. William, a couple times a year, he said.
A couple years ago, the bishop visited the parish to help a class of grade school students receive the sacrament of penance for the first time. Fr. Savikas remembers one little girl especially nervous about approaching the sacrament. Hesitantly, he said, she walked toward Bishop Schoenherr.
"But as she came back, she was skipping down the aisle," he said.
Bishop Schoenner's warmth helps him with many other requests that aren't typical for most other senior priests. After all, he's still a bishop, so he does many confirmations and visits parishes for special occasions, such as to bless a new building or a school.
"To be with the people, I think that's Jesus' model," Bishop Schoenherr said. "He was an itinerant preacher. He never set up an office.
When you're with people, you're relating with Christ there. That's the Church. That's the body of Christ."
Although his advanced age and his health problems have limited some of his activities a self-described "jock in the first class," he's enjoyed sports from baseball to canoeing to golfing in his lifetime Bishop Schoenherr said he's never been bored. He's had five bypass surgeries and now lives with a pacemaker, but still is happy for what he can do at age 86.
"It's so important to do the things you can do," he said. "I can tend to my flowers. I can walk in the woods. I have more time for prayer. I've seen the whole world."
What he still does for the people in the Archdiocese of Detroit is continue to administer the sacraments, support his fellow priests and share his optimism and wisdom with each Christian he meets. And those things he'll do with joy, he said, until the Lord calls him home.
"The apostles, once Jesus left them, never looked backward," Bishop Schoenherr said. "Cardinal (John) Dearden told me that once. They all went forward, bringing the Good News. And they always did it with great enthusiasm, and even gave their lives for it."
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