Bishop Walter J. Schoenherr

Cardinal Adam Maida described the death of retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Walter J. Schoenherr "like losing a good friend, someone you could always count on for down-to-earth wisdom and spiritual encouragement." Bishop Schoenherr died on April 27 at age eighty-seven, after sixty-two years as a priest and thirty-nine as a bishop. His special concerns included the pastoral care of his brother priests and human rights issues.

 

His Excellency attended Sacred Heart Seminary (1942) and Mount St. Mary Seminary in Norwood, Ohio. Retired Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, in his eulogy for his friend and colleague, said that Bishop Schoenherr "was ready to act for justice." Bishop Gumbleton noted the late bishop helped to ease the integration of St. Leo Parish on Grand River Avenue and participated in the March on Washington in 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

 

Sacred Heart Major Seminary acknowledged Bishop Schoenherr's outstanding life's work in 2004 when it named its Chair in Homiletics after him, because of the bishop's pastoral zeal for spreading the Good News whatever the cost.