Retiring Cardinal: 'I've been blessed'
Jul 03, 2006
From his school days at St. Joseph Seminary in Grand Rapids to the bedside of a dying Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Edmund Szoka has lived out a rich and varied ministry in the Catholic Church.
(The Grand Rapid Press, June 24, 2006) The Grand Rapids native looked back with gratitude Friday on 52 years as a priest and powerful church leader, a day after his retirement as governor of Vatican City was announced. "There's not many priests who have all that experience," Szoka said in a telephone interview from his Vatican apartment. "I've been blessed in that, and I'm thankful to the Lord for giving me all these opportunities."
The man who rose from baptism at St. Adalbert Catholic Church on the city's West Side to key Vatican posts will step down Sept. 15, the day after his 79th birthday, following Pope Benedict XVI's acceptance of his retirement. But Szoka stressed he will remain active in Vatican bureaucratic bodies and as a parish priest when needed.
"I continue to be a priest and will be until I die," Szoka said. Grand Rapids Bishop Walter Hurley, who served as chief of staff when Szoka was archbishop of the Detroit Archdiocese, said he admired how Szoka tackled the tough task of closing Detroit parishes. "He faced some issues that needed to be addressed, and addressed them with courage and some considerable sacrifice on his part," Hurley said. "He has just rendered marvelous service to the church." Szoka's service included being named the first bishop of the Gaylord Diocese, serving as the Holy See's budget director and then as a Vatican City administrator overseeing nearly 1,500 employees. It all started with a sense God was calling him to the priesthood while he was growing up in Grand Rapids and Muskegon. Szoka recalled his pastor at St. Michael Catholic Church in Muskegon taking him to visit the former St. Joseph Seminary, now headquarters of the Grand Rapids Diocese at 660 Burton St. SE.
"I saw these seminarians having their track and field day," he recalled of that day in 1941. "I realized, 'Gee, these people are very normal.' " He entered seminary the next year, sticking to a strict study regimen. "I look on those years as very happy years," said Szoka, who pursued further studies in Detroit and Rome before being ordained at Marquette's St. Peter Cathedral in 1954. Szoka counts that ordination and his consecration as a bishop in a Gaylord parish-school gymnasium among the best moments of his ministry. He does not second-guess controversial decisions he made as Detroit archbishop, including the closing or merging of 35 parishes. "Sometimes, I was criticized very severely, but I did what I was convinced was the right thing to do."
Szoka grew close to Pope John Paul II, spending Christmas and Easter dinners with him. He prayed for the pontiff at his deathbed and led a rosary in St. Peter's Square the night he died. "For me, every visit with him was an inspiration," he said. "I always left with the idea, 'I'd like to be holy like he is.' " He will continue to reside in Vatican City after he retires, and looks forward to having more time to read and travel. "It's going to be an adjustment, because I've been working all my life," Szoka said.
Retiring Cardinal: 'I've been blessed'