'A pastoral heart'
Bp. Schoenherr remembered as a gentle, humble, holy man
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published May 4, 2007
Shawn D. Ellis | The Michigan Catholic
Bishop Schoenherr processes out of Mass at the Archdiocese of Detroit's 2006 priest ordinations at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. | Detroit The name "Joseph" is said to come from a Hebrew phrase meaning, "God shall add."
So it may have seemed fitting to the thousands who this week mourned the death of retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Walter Joseph Schoenherr that the bishop chose to be known by his middle name. God added to his life the indelible mark of the priesthood, the responsibilities of being a bishop, and the care of his brother priests. What He never subtracted, Bishop Schoenherr's friends and family said during funeral services this week, was the bishop's sense of simplicity, service and friendship.
"He never worried about what you called him, about being 'Your Lordship,' and all that," said long-time friend Msgr. William Sherzer, a senior priest. "He was Joe Schoenherr from Centerline."
A photo on file from the Archdiocese of Detroit shows Bishop Schoenherr early in his tenure as a Detroit auxiliary bishop. | Known by many as a humble man, down-to-earth, and always willing to give of his time, Bishop Schoenherr succumbed to long-recurring health problems on April 27, at the age of 87. Wake services were held Sunday in the Felician Motherhouse in Livonia on the same campus the bishop lived his last decade at Senior Clergy Village and at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament from Monday through Wednesday. His funeral was to have taken place Wednesday, after this edition of The Michigan Catholic was printed.
Throughout the services, those who mourned the bishop's death and celebrated his life ranged from cardinals, to fellow auxiliary bishops, to brother priests, to laypeople whose lives were enriched by Bishop Schoenherr's ministry. Stories were shared by many who, foremost, knew the bishop as a humble follower of Christ.
Friend to priests
"He always had a pastoral heart," said Fr. Michael Verschaeve, pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Lake Orion. "And the priests in the diocese knew that, and they loved him."
Bishop Schoenherr was the sixth of eight children born to Alex and Ida Schoenherr in Centerline. His family was in the lineage of John Schoenherr, who was a prominent Detroit-area developer for whom Schoenherr Road on Detroit's east side was named.
From an early age, Bishop Schoenherr was aware that he desired to be a pastor. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit on Oct. 27, 1945 in the first class of new priests following World War II. Twenty-three years later, after a wealth of experience in parishes, he was ordained a bishop by Cardinal John Dearden in 1968.
As a bishop, Bishop Schoenherr never set up an office at the chancery in downtown Detroit. His picture of Christ, he would later say, was that of the "itinerant preacher," always among his flock. So as, over the years, the bishop's responsibilities grew to the point where he had jurisdiction over 90 parishes in Wayne County and downriver, he lived a parish-to-parish ministry, both serving and leading his pastors.
"He was a priest's priest," recalled senior priest Fr. John Hall. "His concern was for the priests not only their spiritual welfare, but their physical welfare."
Before ordination as a bishop, he served in seven parishes, including as pastor of St. Aloysius and Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament parishes in Detroit.
As a monsignor, he also served as a chaplain with the First Brigade of the Michigan National Guard's 48th Infantry Division, and was named a major. During the Detroit race riots in 1967, he offered Masses for military troops when the city of Detroit was in upheaval.
His ministry was a comfort to many in the archdiocese. In fact, when Cardinal Dearden was called to the Vatican in the 1970s for a council, the cardinal entrusted the care of the diocese to Bishop Schoenherr.
"I think he did that because he knew that Joe was always on good terms with all the priests," said Msgr. Sherzer, recalling the countless times Bishop Schoenherr would attend and concelebrate the funerals of priests and their parents.
Even to the current day, Bishop Schoenherr served as an inspiration to his brother bishops.
"Losing Bishop Schoenherr feels like losing a good friend, someone you could always count on for down-to-earth wisdom and spiritual encouragement," said Cardinal Adam Maida, as news spread of Bishop Schoenherr's death.
Cardinal Maida was one of several bishops whose lives and ministries were touched by Bishop Schoenherr.
Cardinal Edmund Szoka called Bishop Schoenherr "a man of deep spirituality," and noted that the Archdiocese of Detroit had lost a good, dedicated companion.
"He gave his whole heart and soul to the priesthood with total fidelity and dedication," Cardinal Szoka wrote from Rome.
Detroit's active auxiliary bishops celebrated memorial prayer services throughout the week, sometimes sharing with those gathered how Bishop Schoenherr had impacted their own ministries.
Bishop John Quinn, for example, credited Bishop Schoenherr with doing "everything he could" to help him on the right path as an auxiliary bishop, and admired the late bishop's desire to be with the people he was called to serve.
"Wherever he went no matter where it was that was home," Bishop Quinn said at a prayer service on Monday as Bishop Schoenherr's body was being brought into the cathedral. "And that was the ministry, and he was always glad to be there."
A holy man
Bishop Schoenherr shakes hands with Pope John Paul II in 1998. The bishop met the pope over the course of periodic ad limina visits all bishops make to the Vatican, and when Pope John Paul visited the Detroit area in 1987. | Bishop Quinn and others who had been led spiritually by Bishop Schoenherr noted something else. The bishop was a spiritual and prayerful man.
The pages on his breviary were well-worn, and all his concerns he brought to the Lord in daily prayer. His love for the Eucharist was evident as strongly as ever when, as a senior priest, he would visit parish after parish to help celebrate weekend Masses, confirm children and hear confessions.
His devotion to the Blessed Mother, too, was a sense of inspiration to others as was his prayerful advice to those who sought it from him.
"He said sometimes we don't need a spiritual director, what we need simply is to open up our hearts and minds to God and we will be directed to the right people and the right places," said Sr. Mary of the Compassion, a cloistered Dominican nun at the Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament in Farmington Hills.
Sr. Mary experienced it first-hand when she was 19. On a retreat with the Dominican sisters in Oxford, then-Fr. Schoenherr, who was celebrating Mass at the retreat, asked her about becoming a nun.
"I said 'absolutely not,'" Sr. Mary recalled.
But Fr. Schoenherr told her that she belonged in a contemplative monastery. Only eventually after prayer, a chance visit to the Farmington Hills order, and much work by the Holy Spirit in her heart she joined that contemplative order with a sense of peace and joy.
"He celebrated at my solemn profession," she said, adding that the bishop had a "gift to reach out to people."
As a senior priest, Bishop Schoenherr relished the time he had for spiritual reading, contemplative prayer and community with his brother priests. On the campus of Senior Clergy Villiage in Livonia, he had a series of outdoor Stations of the Cross erected, where anyone on the campus could reflect on Christ's Passion. He also would celebrate Mass with his brother priests each day, and gather with them to read scripture and form homilies for Sunday liturgies.
Bishop Schoenherr's nephew Roy, one of his closest blood relatives who often would drive the bishop to the places where he would minister, also had a fair share of stories about how his uncle brought Christ's presence to those in need.
When the bishop's sister was dying in the hospital, Roy Schoenherr recalled, he drove his uncle out to anoint her. As the bishop was praying with her, a woman in the next bed also gravely ill struggled to peer around the curtain that divided the room.
After praying with his sister, Bishop Schoenherr turned to the woman.
"He said, 'Would you like me to anoint and pray with you?'" Roy Schoenherr said. "This woman was so elated that the bishop would take time to anoint her and pray with her. He spent probably somewhere around an hour with her."
Both women died the next day.
Love the 'little' people
Looking after those who served others and those who would be forgotten was a passion for Bishop Schoenherr, several of his friends said.
And it didn't seem hard for him. He'd take time, they said, to talk with the man who held the door open for him, who would serve food, or park his car, or simply who'd like to meet the bishop.
For instance, Deacon Bob Tremmel of Sacred Heart Parish in Grosse Ile took the bishop fishing after a vicariate meeting a few years back.
"There were neighbors there," Deacon Tremmel recalled, "and I said, 'Let me introduce you.' He said, 'Just tell them I'm Joe.' And that was it."
Actually, sports were among Bishop Schoenherr's passions that allowed him to connect with other people.
In his youth, he enjoyed baseball, canoeing and golfing. A trophy for a field meet even sat beside his bishop's crosses during funeral services. Throughout his life, he loved to travel, too. He visited more than 100 countries, friends say. Stories of home runs and his hole-in-one were circulated, too. Even in his later years, the bishop seldom passed up a chance to go fishing. He would ride his bike around the Felician's campus in Livonia. He even loved planting flowers.
"We went out to dinner, and afterward he asked me if I would help him plant a few flowers," said Jeff Boyer, whose wife, Theresa, is Bishop Schoenherr's niece. "I thought it'd just be a few flowers he had 12 to 15 flats. We wound up flowering the entire retirement village."
And seeing others as flowers in God's garden was a particular gift of the bishop, said Theresa.
During a recent illness, she took her uncle for strolls outside the hospital in his wheelchair.
"We'd always take a bet on how many people we'd run into who'd say, 'Oh, Fr. Joe! You did this for me!' or 'Oh, Fr. Joe, you did that for me!'" she said. "We were amazed by how Fr. Joe had touched everyone's lives."
From his family, to his priestly ministry, to his favorite charities, the bishop liked to make sure that everyone was acknowledged. It was a mission in which he encouraged his fellow priests. Even after his death, he hoped that any donations would go to take care of senior priests who had given their lives in service to the Church.
In his own senior priesthood, he would stress the need to look forward with optimism to the future of Christ's Church.
"The apostles, once Jesus left them, never looked backwards," Bishop Schoenherr had said in an interview last September. "Cardinal 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."
Bishop Schoenherr was predeceased by his sister Marie and brothers Gerald, Melvin, Pete and Roy. He is survived by two of his sisters, Marsha Briggs and Rita Zack, and numerous nieces and nephews.
Bishop Schoenherr was to be buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield.
Condolences may be sent to Roy Schoenherr, 8430 Anchor Bay Drive, Clay Township, 48001. Memorial donations may be sent to Senior Clergy Village, 14461 Levan Road, Livonia, 48154.
|
In his own words...
"I had always been disturbed as a young priest by the theory that a good Catholic had to be someone who belonged to every society in the Church. My father never did. And yet he was a real Christian, because he was really interested in the people and the community. So I have always been interested in the lay apostolate in a broader concept, because I could see what my father did. He was a good Christian man."
On his father, speaking at his ordination as a bishop in 1968
"I tell them it is a great opportunity to do something meaningful with their lives, though of course there are other ways. But there is great joy and happiness
though there are some hardships, too. That's life."
On talking to people discerning vocations, in 1995
"If you aren't better Christians after you leave here, there's something wrong."
to Michigan's National Guards in an extensively damaged area of Detroit during the race riots in 1967.
"There is great renewal in the life of the Church, and the big thing is the role of the laypeople. More people are involved, and there's more opportunity for them than there was before. This is good to see. It has to be that way. Lay people have a right to it, a right to a piece of that rock. That's very important."
upon receiving senior priest status in 1995, of the changes brought by Vatican II
"Don't lose the friends you have now, and always go to the restroom before ceremonies."
advice last year to Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Flores,
before his ordination as bishop
"To be with the people, I think that's Jesus' model. 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."
2006, on keeping active within parishes |
|
