Bishop Rueger remembered as mentor, friend

By Tanya Connor and William T. Clew
The Catholic Free Press

Bishop George E. Rueger was remembered this week not only as a spiritual mentor but as a long-time friend.
When he died Saturday at Christopher House in Worcester, there was not a dry eye in the room, said Sister Mary Ann Bartell, the Carmelite Sister of the Eucharist who heads the diocese’s ministry to retired priests. She said she was there with Mavoureen Robert, who volunteers with Sister Mary Ann’s ministry, Ms. Robert’s husband, Matt LaBarre, and Father Dennis J. O’Brien, minister to priests.
Father O’Brien celebrated Mass at the foot of Bishop Rueger’s bed at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, she said. Father O’Brien said Bishop Rueger was not able to receive the host, but received the blood of Christ. After Mass he read Scripture until Bishop Rueger, very peacefully, passed away, he said.
Sister Mary Ann recalled a day at Christopher House when Bishop Rueger said, “Take me.” 
“Where do you want to go?” she asked.
“Heaven,” he replied.
“Bishop, you have to talk to a higher authority than me,” she responded. But, she mused, “He probably was talking to God.”
When Sister Mary Ann was pioneering the ministry to retired priests she reported to Bishop Rueger. She recalled that it wasn’t going how she’d hoped. The bishop told her to pray about it and give it time, then called her every night, she said. 
“After that, Bishop became my mentor, my confessor and my friend,” she said. “You could tell him anything. He always had the ability to make things right.” 
Sister Mary Ann said she’s never seen anyone who had more love for the priesthood or priests, and that many priests came to talk to him.
“He loved every single priest,” and supported other bishops’ decisions, she said. 

STRONG SUPPORT FROM PRIESTS

Father O’Brien said a friend told him that Bishop Rueger had been one of three priests nominated for bishop and was first choice because of the strong support he received from the priests.
He said he and Bishop Rueger were good friends for 40 years. Father O’Brien served at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Hopedale for three years when Father Rueger was pastor there. One day the pastor told him, “The bishop is sending me to Shrewsbury.” Father O’Brien responded that the people in Hopedale would be very sad.
“They sure will, Pal,” Father Rueger said, “because you’re going with me.” (“Pal” was Bishop Rueger’s nickname for everyone, Father O’Brien said.)
It turned out that Father Rueger was made pastor of St. Peter Parish in Worcester instead. That was in 1981. Father O’Brien, then a teacher at Holy Name Central Catholic High School, moved into residence at St. Peter’s, and they spent three more years together. Father O’Brien said Father Rueger taught him how to be a parish priest – not by lecturing but by example.
When Father Rueger was named auxiliary bishop in 1987, he chose Father O’Brien, by then Holy Name’s headmaster, as his master of ceremonies for confirmations and other events.
Though ordained a bishop, Bishop Rueger “never stopped being a parish priest,” Bishop McManus said.
“People loved him, and they loved the gentle way he talked to them,” Bishop Reilly said. “He had a marvelous way of leading people to the love of God.… He was totally committed to the Church.”
“He was a good, good man – 100 percent – kind to everybody, probably the most-loved man in the diocese,” said Sister Mary Joseph Cross, the Carmelite Sister of the Eucharist who spent weekdays and Sundays taking care of Bishop Rueger for the past several years. She said he was a joy to care for and she and her fellow sisters are now taking care of his beloved cat.
“He had all these friends all these years,” she said; someone at Christopher House said they’d never seen anyone get so many visitors.

HEADMASTER AT MARIAN

“He was just great to talk to,” said Kristina (Carlstrom) Benoit, a Marian Central Catholic High School student when Father Rueger was headmaster there. “Even being with him during his last days was so inspiring. I just can’t thank him enough for touching my life” – and the lives of others. “He just loved people.” She laughs now, recalling what he said upon encountering her in detention one day in high school: “If somebody asked you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it?” (Another student had asked her to buy her a candy bar from the vending machine during study hall.)
“So I got my first detention with Father Rueger and I never got another one,” Ms. Benoit said. In subsequent years, she visited him wherever he was, and they exchanged Christmas cards, she said.
“I went to Marian in 1966; Father Rueger was looking for a male math teacher,” said Leo Gravel. Marian had no laymen and Father Rueger knew him from Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, originally in East Millbury, now in Worcester.
“When we were in the CYC Father Rueger would teach a marriage class to the seniors,” Mr. Gravel recalled. 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.” 
Mr. and Mrs. Gravel both worked at what became St. Peter-Marian Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School, retiring in 2010.
Mrs. Gravel said they took Bishop Rueger to a Marian 50th class reunion a couple years ago “and he was thrilled to be there and the Marian girls were thrilled to have him.”
She had another Bishop Rueger story too: “He’s been known to take a coat off his back in the winter and give it to someone who needed it. He would keep nothing for himself.”

OUR LADY OF LOURDES CYC

“He was the quintessential disciple … top of the pyramid … because he epitomized what Roman Catholicism is all about,” said Deacon John A. Franchi, another former member of Father Rueger’s Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Youth Council. (He said there are 10 to 12 of them who were in the group between 1958 and 1961 “who were still tight with Bishop Rueger.”)
“Whenever we would give him anything, he would give it away,” Deacon Franchi said. “He’d give himself to everyone.… He was compassionate, he was understanding and he was wise.” If you told him about a problem, he put everything into perspective.
“And never, ever, a bad word about anyone,” he continued. “He always saw Jesus in people. He always saw the goodness. I miss him so much.”
His wife, Nancy, said Bishop Rueger was “always there.”
“For everything,” added her husband.  
Albert and Judy Crespo, of St. Mary Parish in North Grafton, also knew Father Rueger at Our Lady of Lourdes.
“We thought we had the best Catholic Youth Council in the diocese – because of him,” Mr. Crespo said. “He was great to be with and he would come up with ideas for activities that we never thought of. And he had ideas to raise money to pay for these trips.… We had scrap metal drives. We sold Christmas trees.”
Mr. Crespo said Father Rueger held CCD classes at 7 p.m. on Mondays, then a “record hop” (dancing) from 8 to 10 p.m., and “we started drawing kids from different parts of the city.”
“We always felt so blessed to have grown up in those ages and to have had him there,” Mrs. Crespo said.
She noted that The Catholic Free Press supplement printed in 2005 for his retirement told how members of that CYC celebrated his 30th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood with him in 1988.
“We could probably fill another whole supplement,” added Mr. Crespo. He said that, after Bishop Rueger’s death, they’d looked at memorabilia to “try to remember him more.”
Bishop Rueger was once quoted as saying, “After Lourdes, there’s heaven,” Mr. Crespo said. 
After Lourdes, they stayed in touch.
“He was a dear, dear friend,” Mrs. Crespo said. “We visited him wherever he was.” 
And he visited them, coming for dinner, then getting down on the floor to play with their children, who called him “Uncle Father,” Mr. Crespo said. He said when their daughter was in a car accident, he was the first person they called, and he came right to the hospital. 

ENCOURAGING WORDS

William Driscoll, St. Peter-Marian’s assistant principal, received encouragement from him too. 
“I met Bishop Rueger when I was at St. Bernard (Central Catholic High School) as a theology teacher,” he said. “He … would come once a year for Mass.” When the bishop asked if there was anything else he could do, Mr. Driscoll invited him to visit his theology classes.
“He did that for at least six or seven years,” Mr. Driscoll said.
“The students just loved him – they gravitated towards him. They commented on how kind he was” and said he listened to them. “And what I appreciated about him – he was so encouraging.” He would comment that teaching theology was difficult, and say, “Keep doing it; I’m praying for you.”
John Monahan, president of the diocesan First Friday Club, also remembered Bishop Rueger’s goodness to young people and adults.
“When he was pastor at St. Peter Parish he used to come outside after Mass and talk to people and give candy to the kids,” he recalled. “He wasn’t afraid to share his thoughts with people. He was a great person. He always had a smile.”
He said Bishop Rueger and the other bishops spoke at the First Friday gatherings; “he was a regular until he couldn’t come any more.” 
Bishop Rueger lived at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel from 2013 to 2017. Msgr. F. Stephen Pedone, the pastor, said the bishop was fond of the three cats that lived in the rectory. Asked if they were the bishop’s cats, Msgr. Pedone said, “no, but he thought they were.”
The bishop loved to feed the cats treats, especially a big one named Patches, the monsignor said. Sometimes, when Bishop Rueger was having breakfast, he would have Patches sitting on the table.
Msgr. Pedone said the cats showed the effects of the treats. “Patches looked like a mountain lion,” he said.
He took the cats to the veterinarian, who asked him why the cats were growing so big.
“Three words,” Msgr. Pedone said. “Bishop George Rueger.”
Msgr. Pedone said Bishop Rueger was beloved by everyone. “He was a wonderful pastor and a wonderful mentor,” Msgr. Pedone said.
Even some of those who tended to him in sickness and after death knew him. 
Sister Mary Ann said he’d baptized one of his emergency room nurses, confirmed an admissions worker at Christopher House and was pastor to a nurse there, when he was at St. Peter’s.
And Michael Marchand, owner and director of Alfred Roy & Sons Funeral Home in Worcester, which is handling his arrangements, said, “I’ve known him since I was a little boy.” Mr. Marchand was at St. Peter’s when Father Rueger was pastor there. And, after being ordained a bishop, he officiated at the Marchands’ wedding and baptized their children.
Mr. Marchand said the children at St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School in Worcester, and funeral home staff, are to form an honor guard on Hammond Street at about 12:30 p.m. Friday as Bishop Rueger’s body is taken from the funeral home to St. Paul Cathedral.
When he lived at Mount Carmel the parishioners were proud that he lived there. He liked to hear confessions on Saturdays, Msgr. Pedone said, and there often was a line outside the bishop’s confessional because people wanted him to hear their confessions.
“Sometimes I had to tell him that Mass was about to start so confessions  had to stop,” Msgr. Pedone said.
After Mass, when children came up for a blessing, the longest line always was the one for Bishop Rueger. At Christmas, Bishop Rueger alway received stacks and stacks of Christmas cards.
In the mid-1980s Bishop Rueger and Msgr. Pedone were at St. Stephen Parish.  When Bishop Rueger was ordained auxiliary bishop for the diocese, Msgr. Pedone congratulated him.
“Not bad for a guy from St. Peter’s,” the bishop said.
Bishop Rueger grew up in a three decker in Main South and enjoyed talking about the neighborhood. Msgr. Pedone said he and the bishop became good friends.
“He was a wonderful pastor and a wonderful mentor,” Msgr. Pedone said, “he was so good to me when my mother died.”
Bishop Rueger’s death marks the end of an era, Msgr. Pedone said.