Northwest Press
June 29, 2011
B3
Father Lou wrote columns, touched many lives Lisa J. Mauch Community Press staff
If Father Lou Guntzelman were writing this story, he’d have the perfect inspirational quote with which to lead off. And a timely lesson to follow. But sometimes pithy words from notable people can’t sum up all we think and feel. The Rev. Louis J. Guntzelman, 79, passed away at his home Monday, June 20, after a long struggle with cancer. Most people didn’t know he was ill, or that he had been fighting cancer since 2007. He was private that way, not wanting people to concern themselves about him since he was usually there to help with their troubles. He had been a columnist for The Community Press and Community Recorder since 1999, and EastSide Weekend before that. Father Lou was born Aug. 31, 1931, in Cincinnati and was raised in Oakley. He did his preparatory studies at St. Gregory Seminary and studied theology and philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West in Norwood. He was ordained on May 25, 1957, at St. Monica Cathedral in Cincinnati. Father John “Jack” Wessling was a classmate of Father Lou’s first at Purcell High School and later at the seminary together. He recalls that Father Lou was the pitcher when the seminarians played fast-pitch softball. “I batted against him. You could always tell when
COURTESY OF THE GUNTZELMAN FAMILY
Father Lou with his Honda motorcycle. he was going to do a slow pitch because his hand would go behind his back,” Wessling said. “He had a great sense of humor. He saw the humor in all kinds of situations,” he said. Father Lou received his first assignment to the faculty at Purcell High School in Cincinnati, alongside Wessling, and as an assistant at St. John the Evangelist Church in Deer Park. It was there that he would meet his future editor. “I’ve known him since I was in grade school. He must have just become a priest. He was so tall and thin. We were all afraid of him,” said Susan McHugh, a former publisher of Community Press and Recorder newspapers and EastSide Weekend. “But even then he was just this kind, gentle, sweet man,” she said. He was put in charge of the Legion of Mary at the school, to which all the girls belonged. An elderly couple
had befriended the young priest so he asked the girls go to their house every week to help out. McHugh remembers coming into his office to complain that they had to wash the same windows every week. “He said something like ‘Well, that’s just part of your cross to bear.’ I think he was just trying to give companionship to this couple. He was always doing nice things like that,” she said. Later she would encounter him again at The Community of the Good Shepherd in Montgomery, his last parish. He served there from 1982 until 1994. “I remember this one sermon …” McHugh said, describing the events following the 1982 airplane crash into the Potomac River and how one man helped others reach safety by passing the rescue ropes onto them instead of taking one for himself. He drowned before rescuers could save him.
“Father Lou said ‘For those of you sitting here and wondering if Christ is still in the world – this is your sign.’ ” During his time there, the number of parish families doubled. According to Rose Huber, a longtime parishioner of Good Shepherd, “He kicked things up a notch there at the church.” Huber first came to know Father Lou when they worked together on the parish newsletter “The Flock Report.” “He was loved by his parish and beyond. I have friends of different denominations including a friend who is Jewish and they all looked forward to reading his (Community Press) column every week. He touched many lives on many levels,” she said. “He was so open himself of other faiths and belief systems.” Huber had a childhood friend who was Catholic but had converted and married someone of a different religion. She was having a crisis of faith and Huber asked Father Lou to talk to her. “She came out of there a changed woman. Father Lou had told her, ‘We all find God where we find God. The important thing is to find God on your level.’ “He turned her life around. He did that for a stranger off the street. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Father Lou,” Huber said. Father Lou, who appreciated art and music, was also instrumental in having the Wall of Creation installed at the church. The award-winning
limestone wall was carved by local artist Karen Heyl and depicts the creation story from Genesis. Huber also remembers her favorite picture of Father Lou that they ran in “The Flock Report” – of him and his motorcycle. “He used to love riding around the neighborhood, in Montgomery and Loveland,” she said. After leaving Good Shepherd he started writing a column, first for EastSide Weekend and then in February 1999 for The Community Press and Community Recorder newspapers. And once his columns became available on the Internet, reader responses came from as far away as Brazil, Africa and Australia. “He gave so much in his columns and spent so much time writing them. He made people feel it’s going to be OK and you’re going to be OK,” McHugh said. When asked why she thought his columns were so popular among Catholics and non-Catholics alike, she said, “I think he didn’t treat it like religion. He really based it on faith and goodness. The whole ‘God is good: God is love’ theme. He really believed that. “When he was writing his columns or delivering his sermons, he didn’t want to punish or demean a person. He wanted to lift them up,” McHugh said. “He elevated people instead of the old fire and brimstone. He was more ‘If you do it this way, you’re going to experience so much more joy.’ ” Besides his weekly column, readers could still find
him celebrating Mass and helping out at St. Susanna in Mason, and later at All Saints and St. Vincent Ferrer, both in Kenwood. Father George Hunkel learned how to write homilies from Father Lou during his seminary days. And when he became pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer five years ago, “(Father Lou) asked me if he could help out and I took him up on his offer my first Sunday there.” “I always admired him and found him so inspiring,” he said. Father Lou’s writing wasn’t limited to homilies and the newspaper. He wrote the books “So Heart and Mind Can Fill: Reflections for Living,” and “The Country Called Life: More Reflections for Living.” He co-authored “Come, Healing God: Prayers During Illness” with his sister, Joan Guntzelman. “Father Guntzelman was a popular priest who touched many lives in a positive way through his ministries, as a pastor, a teacher and a writer,” said Dan Andriacco, communications director for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He is survived by siblings Joan, Mary Ellen and Raymond Guntzelman and several nieces and nephews. Mass of Christian Burial was June 24 at St. Cecilia, Oakley. Interment was at Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Montgomery. In lieu of flowers, remembrances can be made to Bearcats Against Cancer, c/o Dr. William Barrett, Barrett Cancer Center, 234 Goodman Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45267-0757.
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