by Bishop Raymond A. Lucker
Diocese of New Ulm

The year 2000 will mark for me the 25th year since my appointment as Bishop of New Ulm. In 2001 I will celebrate the 30th year since I was called by Pope Paul VI to be a bishop and successor of the Apostles.

I have always thought of myself as a pretty ordinary, old-fashioned boy from a German immigrant parish in the East Side of St. Paul.

I grew up in the 1930s in a family of the Depression. We made due with what we had. My mother darned socks, mended pants, made dresses for herself and my sisters. Clothes were handed on from older to younger. My father could make and repair anything around the house. He had two jobs, cultivated a big garden, and raised a few chickens and pigeons on the side.

Family recreation consisted of picnics, visiting relatives, playing cards and board games, and actively participating in activities, including indoor roller skating, at Sacred Heart Parish. We went to a Catholic School, attended daily Mass and Communion, celebrated Benediction and weekly Novenas in honor of St. Anthony (the wonder worker). I regularly walked with my mother to Wednesday evening Holy Hours. I served Mass regularly and participated in Forty Hours, Corpus Christi processions, and the special celebration of First Communion and Confirmation. All of this has affected me to this day. I believe in following the liturgical norms. I support traditional devotions, hymns, and art forms.

At age fourteen I began the long twelve year course of study for the priesthood, first at Nazareth Hall and then at the St. Paul Seminary. World War II began during my Freshman year. I obeyed the rules, the rigid schedule of classes, study periods, religious exercises, meals together in the refectory, and simple recreation. Never an athlete, I confined myself to "Z" league intramural sports and worked in the woods chopping fuel for the kitchen stoves. I was happy, devout, obedient, and traditional. For the most part, all of us were.

Already in the seminary I was deeply affected by the winds of change. Pope Pius XII had written marvelous encyclicals on the church as the Mystical Body of Christ, on the sacred liturgy, and on the study of sacred scripture. We studied those encyclicals and knew that their teachings would be very much part of our priestly life. Great leaders like Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker, Catherine de Hueck of Friendship House, the Trapp family singers, and many others lectured at the seminary.

We were excited by the specialized Catholic Action movements started by Canon Cardijn. I was influenced by the farsighted work of Father John Sweeney and Father Joseph Baglio at the Twin City Catholic Youth Centers. I formed a discussion group of seminarians who met in my room weekly to study the Lay Apostolate and the role of lay people in the church.

This traditional church to which I was so closely identified was beginning to be shaken to its roots as winds of change were beginning to touch the lives of many people. The church was calling for native vocations in missionary lands. The liturgical renewal was bubbling up and affecting the lives of many. There was ferment in the study of theology, sacred scripture, and Catholic social teaching.

When I was ordained I was immediately assigned to direct the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in the Archdiocese of St. Paul. That movement was designed to invite lay people to participate in the ministry of religious education, recruiting people to be catechists, youth leaders, members of adult discussion groups, parents who would hand on their faith to their children, and people involved in living room ecumenical dialogues.

Listening and working with lay people changed my life. Even though our textbooks were based on the Baltimore Catechism where we were urged to learn all of the questions and know all of the answers, we were beginning to recognize that there were many theological expressions of our one faith.

Twelve years after I was ordained I was sent to Rome to study theology. I was there during the Second Vatican Council. It was the most profound experience in my life. I went through a personal conversion. My faith became a personal relationship with God as well as an assent to the truths that God has revealed. The Second Vatican Council called the whole church to reform and renewal; for an active, informed and committed laity, for the collegiality of bishops, for the importance of the local church, for ecumenical dialogue. The Council urged us to engage with the world and invited every member of the church to work for the transformation of society.

I saw in the Second Vatican Council a fulfillment of all my dreams. I became actively involved in the Cursillo Movement, in Charismatic Renewal, in retreats and in spiritual direction. All of this I believe was built on the traditional church in which I was born and raised.

A few weeks ago I spoke at the Call to Action Conference in Milwaukee. I find the same kind of people there that I grew up with, people who love the church, who have embraced the reforms of Vatican II, who are open to the growth of their faith through participation in small faith-sharing groups, who are concerned by the renewal of the church and who are deeply committed to the "new Pentecost" so ardently prayed for by the saintly Pope John XXIII. They are active in their own parishes and dioceses, engaged in the transformation of society, committed to non-violence, justice and peace.

Last year when I spoke in favor of the ordination of married men and this year when I called for reform of the Vatican offices in Rome, when I sometimes speak as a lonely voice at the Bishops’ Conference as I did last week saying that the mandate for theologians does not fit with our cultural situation, or when I speak on other issues, my words always flow from my deep love for the church and from the tradition that declares that the church must ever be reformed.

I still think of myself as a pretty ordinary, old-fashioned boy from the East Side.

December, 1999