Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Fr. Heidelberger was 'saintly, simple' man
Fr. Heidelberger was 'saintly, simple' man
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 13, 2009
Detroit Fr. Ronald Heidelberger lived out his vocation with simplicity, smiles and an approachability that made him a model priest, those who knew him said last week.
"He was the type of person who reminded you that sometimes simplicity is better he could inspire you to look inside yourself," said David Wagner, who served as Fr. Heidelberger's organist at St. Ambrose Parish in Grosse Pointe Park in the 1970s. "He was the type of person who made you want to be a better person."
Fr. Heidelberger died Jan. 29, following a long illness. He was 87 and had served as a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit for 62 years.
"He was a saintly guy," said Fr. Heidelberger's younger brother, Philip. "He was that way his whole life. His life was very simple, and he was good to be with all the time."
Fr. Heidelberger was born March 8, 1921, in Detroit, one of seven children of Joseph and Edith Heidelberger.
Philip Heidelberger, the youngest of the children, said his brother was both a stellar athlete and a model student growing up, and it was no surprise to his family that he decided to become a priest.
"He was always the tops in school I had trouble keeping up with him," Philip said. "He went to seminary after he got out of high school, and there was never any doubt about it (that he would be a priest). He just lived that way."
Fr. Heidelberger attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and Mount St. Mary Seminary in Norwood, Ohio. He was ordained a priest on Oct. 26, 1946, in Detroit.
He was assigned assistant pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Port Huron from 1946 until 1951, and at Presentation Parish in Detroit, from 1951 until 1955. He then ministered for a year at the Archdiocesan Charities Office, before spending 12 years as chaplain for the Wayne County Youth Home juvenile correctional facility.
Returning to parish work, he was named pastor of Holy Ghost Parish in Detroit in 1968 and served there until 1970. He was pastor of St. Ambrose Parish from 1970 until 1976, and was pastor of Visitation Parish in Detroit from 1976 until the parish closed in 1989. He attained senior priest status in 1989.
He also served as speaker for the Archdiocese of Detroit Family Life Bureau, and as a part-time chaplain at Providence Hospital in Southfield from 1984 until 1994.
Wagner now music minister at St. Anne in Warren, host of a classical music radio show, and professor at Madonna University in Livonia recalled Fr. Heidelberger having a profound impact on both himself and St. Ambrose Parish, because of his patience and humility.
Wagner said, as a young musician, he wasn't the easiest person to get along with, but Fr. Heidelberger practiced great patience and helped him grow personally.
"He was very much to me like a father figure, more so than a boss," Wagner said. "He taught me a lot about how to deal with people and be patient and approach situations with humor, and to make people comfortable that was one of his great skills."
Wagner and others who lived with Fr. Heidelberger at St. Ambrose vividly recall threadbare surroundings in the parish rectory. Fr. Heidelberger though he never thought much of it himself was devoutly simple, they say. He never owned more than he could fit into his Volkswagen Beetle. For years, he even had in the rectory an old black-and-white television with its picture tube broken loose and tilting at an angle.
"For him, that was a foolish sort of luxury, and he certainly wasn't going to spend parishioners' money redoing things for himself," Wagner said.
Through it all, Wagner added, Fr. Heidelberger remained unimpressed by his own simplicity.
"For him, what he did and how he lived wasn't anything out of the ordinary at all," he said. "But we see that sort of selflessness as remarkable."
Fr. Michael Savickas, pastor of St. William Parish in Walled Lake, recalled Fr. Heidelberger's simplicity and his willingness to put others with greater needs ahead of him.
"He always had a deep and abiding concern for the poor," said Fr. Savickas, who served as a transitional deacon at St. Ambrose while Fr. Heidelberger was pastor there. "He lived the Gospel virtue of poverty himself. He didn't require all kinds of glitz and glamour. He didn't need anything better. He'd prefer to give the money away."
Fr. Savickas added that he was grateful to have Fr. Heidelberger as a model just prior to his ordination, calling him a "gentle man" and remembering "his devotion to the people, his prayerfulness and his willingness to try new things." He said Fr. Heidelberger wouldn't shy away from new ideas to enrich the liturgy, either.
"He was a good model," Fr. Savickas said.
In addition to his brother Philip, with his wife Theresa, Fr. Heidelberger is survived by several nieces, nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews.
His funeral Mass was to have been Feb. 11 at St. Ambrose Church, with Archbishop Allen Vigneron presiding.
Memorial donations may be made to St. Ambrose Parish, or Hospice of Michigan or a charity of your choice.
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