2019: Sad endings, hopeful beginnings

In the year 2019 people in the Diocese of Worcester experienced some sad endings as well as some hopeful beginnings.
A beloved bishop dies, a parish church is taken down after a long battle, ministry workers visit the U.S.-Mexican border and the diocese embarks on a capital campaign to strengthen its parishes.
Things that were begun in 2019 could come to completion in 2020.
The fate of three Central Catholic high schools with declining enrollment should be determined in the new year.
In July the diocese announced that it would pay the annual deficit of St. Bernard Central Catholic High School in Fitchburg for the 2019-2020 school year in order to allow a private organization time to come up with a viable plan for continuing the operation of the school. An enrollment goal of more than 100 students was met and a deficit of $800,000 was projected.
In November the Bernardian Charitable Foundation and the board of trustees for St. Bernard’s High School announced the public launch of “All In: Campaign for St. Bernard’s High School.” The goal is to raise $2 million. The supporters and alumni of the school said they had commitments of $725,000 in the leadership phase of the campaign.
A transition team is continuing to provide evidence to a diocesan review panel that it has the capacity to successfully run
 the school fiscally, operationally and academically.
“Since families need to commit to schools for the next academic year,” David Perda, superintendent of Catholic Schools, said that people can “expect a decision not too far into the new year.”
In December Superintendent Perda announced that two other Worcester Central Catholic junior/senior high schools, St. Peter-Marian and Holy Name, will merge for the 2020-21 academic year. Engineers and building specialists are to conduct site assessments at both campuses to determine which one should serve as the future site of the new school.
“We have two healthy school communities. Bringing them together would equip a single school to be able to meet our future needs with long-term viability,” said Michael Clark, associate superintendent of secondary schools.
St. Peter-Marian’s current student body numbers 358, and Holy Name’s is 507, the school department reports. Both have suffered a steady decline in enrollment over the past 15 years.
“As we embark on a new chapter in the life of Catholic education, I ask for you to sustain that hope, trusting in the great opportunity of what may come through our collective efforts and prayer,” Superintendent Perda said in a letter to parents.
In May, St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, a private school run by the Xaverian Brothers, announced that it will add a middle school for boys beginning in 2020. The school is slated to open Sept. 2, 2020, with a seventh-grade class of 75 to 90 students and an average class size of 18 to 22, the school reported.

Mount Carmel Church
More than three years after it was deemed unsafe, and it was determined that the parish could not afford needed structural repairs, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Mulberry Street was taken down and the property readied for sale. Demolition began in early August and was completed in late September. Throughout the process former parishioners stopped by to watch, to pray and to gather mementos from the building.
Bishop McManus closed the building in May 2016 and in February 2017 officially merged Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Ann Parish with Our Lady of Loreto, another Italian-American parish that was once a mission of Mount Carmel.
A group of former parishioners, calling themselves the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Preservation Society, tried for several years to prevent the razing of the building. The group appealed to the Vatican, seeking to overturn the bishop’s decisions to close the church and merge the parish. Their final Vatican appeal was denied in April. The group then filed a civil lawsuit in Worcester Superior Court to block the demolition. Judge Dennis M. Wrenn ruled against their request for an injunction.
The parish has yet to complete the sale of the property but is moving forward with an undisclosed buyer, according to Msgr. F. Stephen Pedone, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish at Our Lady of Loreto Church on Massasoit Road.
Msgr. Pedone grew up in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish on Mulberry Street, and was pastor there when Bishop McManus closed the church and merged the parishes.
His brother Michael Pedone was visiting the site during final days of the demolition.
“Words don’t describe what we felt. We all grew up in this church. We loved this church,” he said. “I feel for people of the parish and my brother. He believed in this church.”

Death of Bishop Rueger
The only auxiliary bishop in the Worcester Diocese died April 6 at the age of 89.
Bishop George Edward Rueger, retired auxiliary bishop, grew up in the diocese and served the people as a priest and a bishop. Hundreds of people attended his funeral and shared memories of the beloved bishop.
Bishop McManus said, “I am profoundly saddened by the death of Bishop George Rueger. He was a kind and gentle priest and bishop who dedicated every moment of his life to the people of the Diocese of Worcester whom he loved so deeply. His humility, which was grounded in a complete commitment to his vocation to the priesthood, was an inspiration for all of us who are ordained.”
“When we were in the CYC Father Rueger would teach a marriage class to the seniors,” Leo Gravel recalled the week of Bishop Rueger’s death. “Many couples who’d been in it celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in the past several years,” he said. His wife, Joyce, said Bishop Rueger was “a genuine friend from the CYC, to our marriages, up until today.”
“He was a good, good man – 100 percent – kind to everybody, probably the most-loved man in the diocese. He had all these friends all these years,” said Sister Mary Joseph Cross, the Carmelite Sister of the Eucharist who spent weekdays and Sundays taking care of Bishop Rueger for the last few years of his life.
Father Rueger was ordained a priest Jan. 6, 1958 by Bishop John J. Wright in St. Paul Cathedral, Worcester. He served as assistant pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in East Millbury and St. Peter Parish in Worcester.
In June 1965 he was named the first headmaster of Marian Central Catholic High School, Worcester.
In 1974 he was named assistant pastor of Our Lady of the Lake Parish in Leominster. Two years later he was elected president of the diocesan Senate of Priests.
In 1977 he was named pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Hopedale. He was appointed diocesan Superintendent of Catholic Schools on Aug. 1, 1978, while remaining pastor in Hopedale. On Dec. 1, 1980 he returned to full-time ministry in Hopedale. Three months later, on Feb. 27, 1981, he was named pastor of St. Peter Parish, Worcester.
In January 1987 Pope John Paul II named Bishop Rueger Auxiliary Bishop of Worcester. His episcopal motto, “That They All May Be One,” was taken from the Gospel of John (17:21-22).  
On Feb. 25, 1987, he was ordained a bishop in St. Paul Cathedral. Bishop Timothy J. Harrington was consecrator. Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan, second Bishop of Worcester, and Bishop John A. Marshall, Bishop of Burlington, Vermont, who had been a priest in Worcester, were co-consecrators.
In addition to being auxiliary bishop, Bishop Reuger was named vicar general of the diocese in 1989. He also served as diocesan chancellor and vicar for education and diocesan coordinator for The Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Bishop Rueger served as auxiliary bishop for 18 years, assisting Bishop Harrington, Bishop Daniel P. Reilly and Bishop McManus.
In June 1998, Bishop Reilly named him to a new position, diocesan moderator of the curia, while he continued as vicar general.
In 2002, a civil suit alleging sexual misconduct with a minor in the 1960s was filed against Bishop Rueger, which he vigorously denied. The diocese conducted an extensive investigation which could not substantiate the allegation and the District Attorney’s office was also notified. The following year the accuser withdrew the case willfully and voluntarily.
After 47 years of service to the diocese, 18 of them as auxiliary bishop, and after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2004, Bishop Rueger submitted his resignation to Pope John Paul II, who accepted it.

On the border
At least 10 people involved in ministry here got a first-hand look at the U.S.-Mexican border situation in 2019. The Catholic Church and Catholic agencies maintain a commitment to help asylum seekers, on both sides of the border.
Four diocesan priests spent three days on the border to observe the ministries of the Catholic Church that serve migrants on both sides. Local religious sisters responded to an invitation sent by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to help at the border. And four Spanish-speaking women from Catholic Charities Worcester County were among those who answered the call to help Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Laredo, Texas. Laredo’s Catholic Charities has a staff of just seven people and 200 to 300 asylum-seekers a day coming in.
Father Peter J. Joyce, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish, Milford; Father William E. Champlin, pastor of St. Leo Parish, Leominster; Father Stephen E. Lundrigan, pastor of Annunciation Parish, Gardner, and Father Hugo A. Cano, director of the Hispanic/Latino Ministry, arrived at the border near Brownsville, Texas, Jan. 30 and returned home Feb. 1. The trip was under the auspices of the Catholic Extension’s Mission Immersion Program for Pastors.  
Father Joyce said the trip was a way to give them an awareness of the Church’s work with the poor.
“This is a complex problem,” Father Lundrigan said about migrants seeking asylum. “People need to cease the political fighting and find a solution; the longer they wait” the more individuals are placed at risk, he said.
Sister Dorothy Scesny and Sister Paula Cormier, Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary, volunteered to work with people who had come over the border into the United States. They worked in Texas Feb. 6-21. Sister Paula, a retired sister living at Sacred Heart Convent in Fitchburg, worked with Sisters of Loreto in El Paso. Sister Dorothy, director of mission and spiritual care at St. Mary Health Care in Worcester, worked with Sisters of Divine Providence in San Benito, near Brownsville.
Sister Paula said it was very sad to hear people’s stories, the struggles they went through to get here, not knowing if they could stay. “It’s amazing how people still have hope,” she said.  
Local Catholic Charities workers who volunteered from May 26 to June 3 to help in Laredo’s Catholic Charities are Maritza Cedeno, an administrator in the Leominster area, and Danishka Valdes, an administrator in the Milford/ Whitinsville area. Maydee Morales, director of emergency services in Central Massachusetts, and Natasha Rodrigues, a staff worker in Worcester, volunteered from June 3-10.
They spent 10-12 hours a day greeting the asylum seekers, helping them with personal needs and connecting them with contacts and sponsors already in the U.S.
Ms. Valdes called her week “the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”
    
Legacy of Hope
Sustaining and strengthening parishes is a key component of Legacy of Hope, the new capital campaign that got under way in the Diocese of Worcester in 2019.
“The goal of this campaign is to make the parishes stronger because the life of the Church happens in the parish – the diocese is as strong as its parishes,” Bishop McManus said.
Legacy of Hope’s target of $32 million will be used to support the parishes, St. Paul Cathedral, retired priests, Catholic education, and outreach and evangelization efforts initiated in the parishes. The parishes are to receive 40 percent of what is generated.
    At the end of the year Legacy of Hope had raised approximately $16.8 million and a total of 46 parishes have participated. The remainder of the parishes are to begin their parish campaigns in 2020.
    In explaining how he chose the name Legacy of Hope, Bishop McManus said that he has received a legacy from his predecessors and his responsibility is to leave the diocese in as good as or better shape than he received it. Passing on a legacy is a way of describing the passing on of the tradition of faith, he said.