By Matt Weafer
Western Kentucky Catholic
For Bishop John McRaith, retirement won't be much different than the past 26 years. He'll have fewer responsibilities, especially when the new bishop takes his seat as administrator of the 32-county diocese, but those responsibilities were just a part of God's calling.
Bishop McRaith's main job was to let the Holy Spirit work through him to spread the Good News, the love of Jesus Christ, which he will continue to do in retirement.
Even as the leader of the diocese, Bishop McRaith said he never felt like he was in control.
"When I think that I'm in charge," he said, "I'm in trouble. . . . We have to go back and remember that the Holy Spirit is in charge of the mission of the church."
And he defined that mission simply as spreading God's love.
"When I realize through my faith that I know God is in charge then I know I only have to do the best I can," he said. "And that doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. We all make mistakes."
For just more than a quarter of a century, Bishop McRaith dedicated his life to spreading the Good News in the Diocese of Owensboro, reaching out to the people that needed it most.
Sister Joseph Angela Boone, Director of Administration, said "He has started a lot of ministries in the diocese that had never been here before."
Some of the ministries the bishop helped found include the Family Life Office, the Social Concerns Office, the Religious Education Office, the Office of Wisdom, the Stewardship Office and the Safe Environment Office.
"He has also been a very strong advocate for Hispanic ministry," Sr. Joseph Angela said. "Another big thing that he has accomplished was getting just wages for the employees in the diocese, including staff and teachers."
But his most admirable trait, she said, was his patience with the people of the diocese, especially in administrative positions.
When he founded the Diocesan Pastoral Council, which currently has about 30 people from eight deaneries, Sr. Joseph Angela said, organizing the body into a coherent focus was difficult at its inception in the late 80s.
"His patience in trying to get that started was unbelievable," she said.
The Bishop's goal for this council was to bring forth concerns and suggestions from the grassroots level from parishes and deaneries.
"(But the members') reasons for being there was to carry out the mandates of the bishop," Sr. Joseph Angela said. "But he did not mandate things. He wanted solutions to come from the grassroots."
Sr. Joseph Angela recounted her first meeting with the Diocesan Pastoral Council: "It was prior to 1989 when I came. One member said, 'Bishop, just tell us what you want us to do and we'll do it.' That's not what he wanted. He wanted the people in the pews to come up with ideas. He wanted the body of the church to be aware of what needed to be done. He was very very collaborative."
Fr. John Vaughan said, "He's a great listener and believes in broad consultation. That's one of his trademarks that has served us well."
Bishop McRaith treated consultation not as a challenge but as a necessity to truly let the Holy Spirit work through the Diocese.
"We are a people with diverse abilities and diverse roles with a lot of questions," Bishop McRaith said. "And the Holy Spirit or God or Jesus expects us to live as one body. That will always be the challenge, not to let petty differences get in the way of serious work that needs to be done and to bring the Good News to all the people of God."
Catholic Schools Superintendant Jim Mattingly remembered Bishop McRaith saying in one of his homilies at CPC morning Mass, "We don't have to have all the answers. But if we have faith in God, the Spirit will lead us to the answers."
While Bishop McRaith accomplished much during his time with the Diocese, he takes credit for very little.
"I just have immense gratitude for how the people have accepted me and how they have worked with me and how they have helped me grow in the model of God," he said. "There's a real sadness in leaving the ministry that I did have as the bishop, though I'll still be a bishop."
For the next year, Bishop McRaith will still help with confessions and the Chrism Mass or "whatever they want me to do," he said. "I'll wait to be asked."
With so many years invested into the dioceses, Bishop McRaith said picking out a favorite memory was too difficult. "There are so many things that have happened over those 26 plus years," he said, "some of it very very exciting and challenging, but generally we've had some great celebrations."
He said some of his favorite celebrations were when people traveled from across the diocese to celebrate as one. He also said one thing he wished he could have devoted more time to during his ministry was ecumenism.
"We've tried to put a great emphasis on the need for unity and oneness both in how we live out our lives whether bishop or priest or laity," he said, "but also it's an absolute essential to carry out the mission of the church. So there's been great effort put into building a sense of unity and culture of unity, if you will. How effective it's been only God can judge that."
The group of people that will directly feel the effects of the Bishop retiring the most is the staff that works with him every day.
"I'm going to miss working with the staff and working closely with the priests and the consultative bodies, and the laity I'll miss a lot," he said.
Sr. Joseph Angela said, "He has great devotion to the liturgy and is generous in celebrating the Eucharist with the staff here as often as he possibly can whenever he is available. That was one of his great contributions, I thought, that made him so great. He wanted to celebrate the Eucharist everyday. I appreciated it and a lot of other people did too."
For the future Bishop McRaith said he will say mass where he's invited or in his chapel. He also said that while he has lived at his house on 5th St. his entire career with the Diocese, the new bishop has the choice to live their. "If he would want the house," Bishop McRaith said, "he would have the right to have it. If he doesn't, I would probably remain here."
And while he has too many fond memories to single any out, he also had many trying times.
"The sexual abuse scandal was probably the most trying time because you're working with hurting people, trying to do the best you can to reach out to those who are hurting and help them in ways that we could," he said. "I certainly learned the pain of those who have experienced sexual abuse and those who have experienced any kind of abuse that affected their lives."
While the Owensboro Diocese was just one of many dioceses mixed in the scandal, the image of the entire Catholic Church suffered in the public eye. But the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops worked along with many others to redeem the sanctity of the Church.
"It depends on who you ask of course, but I think the bishops have done a great job of helping the diocese put together programs, safe environment programs which will hopefully not only be helpful to the church but as well as any entity that is dealing in particular with children," Bishop McRaith said. "I think that a tremendous amount of effort was put in on the part of many people to make the programs we have. The sexual abuse policies are probably some of the first since 1985. We've had a policy but it hadn't been updated."
But for the individuals directly affected by the scandal, there were more important things than the Church's image.
"(Bishop McRaith) was a perfect model of listening to people and not making them feel that it was all their fault," Sr. Joseph Angela said. "If you listen to someone sometimes that's all they need. Someone to listen to them and believe they are telling the facts as they really are."
She said the Bishop even offered to pay for counseling for anyone involved in the scandal.
"That's when we set up the safe environment office," Sr. Joseph Angela said. And all the employees and volunteers had to have a criminal background check."
"The many people I have talked to made me much more aware of the seriousness of the problem, the magnitude of it," Bishop McRaith said.
Former editor of the Messenger-Inquirer Dan Heckel said, "When the church was struggling to get through the abuse scandal, I was always impressed that the Bishop never avoided any of the reporters at the Messenger-Inquirer. Anytime a reporter called him, even though he knew it was going to be an unpleasant question, he always made himself available. That's rare these days, but Bishop McRaith has always stood a bit taller than the rest of the crowd."
Bishop McRaith's calm composure and gentleness permeated every aspect of his ministry.
"He was very very collaborative," Sr. Joseph Angela said. "He had extreme patience. He would listen to you and maybe if you were completely on the wrong track, he would very gently say 'but' and you would see the Holy Spirit coming out of him. He had a gentle way of educating you to the real thing and not what you thought it ought to be."
His dedication to the Holy Spirit was his constant guide and his compassion helped form his and the Diocese's argument against abortion, another difficult issue during the bishop's ministry.
"I think we need to see that Roe v. Wade was just one of the great injustices and the most serious injustice that was ever perpetrated on the people," Bishop McRaith said. "We're very much a church that believes in the dignity of the human person, the right of every human person to be treated with dignity the dignity that a child of God should have."
The bishop said that while there are many global issues the Catholic Church is hoping to impact, abortion is the first.
"Only in working on all of those issues will we make strides toward success," he said. "But the first issue is abortion because you have to be born before you can receive any injustices. This is the most defenseless group of people that deserve our best efforts to be their voices because they don't have one."
Perhaps surprisingly, the bishop's argument against abortion stems from stewardship.
"It really comes down to the question of who owns what, and God owns everything, which is the truth, and we are stewards of him," he said. "Once we get it through our heads that God owns everything, we'll begin to divide up resources and we'll play a major roll in shaping the future of the world and never to forget two things: how much God loves us, and from scripture, never to forget (that God said), 'You have not chosen me; I have chosen you.'"
As good stewards, good choices become obvious.
"It's very misunderstood when you talk about stewardship," he said. "People think you're talking about trying to give money, and that's the furthest from the truth. It's the question of where do we get our gifts from, and they came from God and they were given to us not for our own honor and glory but for the building up of the body of Christ, which means reaching out to everyone who's being treated unjustly and unfairly and who are not being able to use their gifts to the fullest."
For Bishop McRaith, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Good News of the Lord, and stewardship all role into one. "It's so simple people don't listen to it," he said. "To live out the answer is going to mean suffering and pain. It's going to mean a close loving relationship with Jesus and truly carrying out the great commandment to love each other as Jesus has loved us."
As for his hopes for the future bishop, Bishop McRaith said he hopes to see "someone who truly loves the wonderful faith-filled people that are here, and that includes the laity and priests, religious and the deacon. I just pray that he will find them as faith-filled as I have found them to be."
Sr. Joseph Angela said, "It will be hard for anyone to follow him. His generosity is great."
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