Bishop Richard F. Stika Special ordination edition Section C
Another Kenrick alum tapped aving an alumnus named a bishop is not unusual for Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, and Bishop Richard F. Stika is the latest in a long line of graduates dating back nearly 200 years to receive that honor. “We are very honored when one of our alumni is called by the Holy Father to serve the church as a bishop,” said Monsignor Ted Wojcicki, Kenrick-Glennon’s president-rector, in a Feb. 20 interview at the Catholic Center in St. Louis. “I’ve known Monsignor Stika ever since he’s been a priest,” said Monsignor Wojcicki. “I was ordained in 1975, and he was ordained about 10 years later.” Bishop Stika received his master of divinity degree from Kenrick Seminary in 1985 and was ordained to the priesthood on Dec. 14 of that year. Two of his seminary classmates serve at Kenrick-Glennon, as the institution has been known since 1987. “Monsignor [Timothy P.] Cronin is the rector of Cardinal Glennon College, and Monsignor [James J.] Ramacciotti is a professor of canon law at the seminary, so we’re blessed to have two other of his classmates serving right there with us,” said Monsignor Wojcicki. The Kenrick leader listed several characteristics that will help Bishop Stika as he shepherds East Tennessee Catholics. “He loves being a priest,” said Monsignor Wojcicki, who plans to attend his friend’s ordination and installation. “He loves the church. He’s a very family-oriented person. He can relate to a wide range of people. I predict you will like him.” East Tennesseans will see that “when someone is in need, someone is sick, or someone has a misfortune, Monsignor Stika is going to be one of the first people to reach out,” said Monsignor Wojcicki. “He has that strong pastoral side to him, so he would leave other things behind if he thought someone needed some immediate help. I’m sure he’ll have great outreach to the priests and to the people of the diocese in that way.” Monsignor Wojcicki said he expects Bishop Stika to “be very active promoting vocations.”
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“He’s a man who does not like the status quo—he’s going to get things moving,” he said. “I’m sure he’s going to make himself available to activities where there are young men. He’s a high-energy person. He’ll stay on the move to make himself present to people. “I think he’ll be a promoter of vocations simply by his own enthusiasm for the faith, his enthusiasm for the church. I think his enthusiasm for his own priesthood will be contagious for these young men.” Bishop Stika grew up across the street from current St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and remains a good friend of the city’s leader. “Because he has that kind of personal relationship with one of our most influential citizens, I think that you can see how comfortable he is around most people,” said Monsignor Wojcicki. “I think that gift gives him an even greater comfort level around people who are in responsible positions, and that’s going to be very
beneficial to a bishop, to be able to relate in a very human way to people who are in influential positions and not simply relate to them through their own position of power.” Monsignor Wojcicki has crossed paths with Bishop Stika “quite a bit” over the years. “Not quite so much in the seminary role, but I worked here on Lindell Boulevard [at the Catholic Center] for 12 years, and he worked here quite a long time also. He was on the archbishop’s staff, and he was a vicar general, and we worked together in this building, the Catholic Center, for five years. I was the vicar for planning and the vicar for evangelization, and he had many different responsibilities relating to Archbishop [nowCardinal Justin F.] Rigali, so we worked on a lot of projects together.” Bishop Stika coordinated Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis in 1999, and Monsignor Wojcicki was on a committee with his friend that helped bring the Holy Father to the “Rome of the West.” “We worked daily for nine months getting ready for the pope to come in 1999 and almost six months after he left just on follow-up activities, so that brought us in very close contact,” said Monsignor Wojcicki. “I think there were 70 different committees involved in that in one way or another, and Monsignor [Stika] coordinated those activities.” Another “big project we worked very closely on,” said Monsignor Wojcicki, “was the elementary school teachers’ working out their level of collaboration with one another and the archdiocese, trying to ensure good wages and good working conditions for the teachers and an appropriate relationship with the diocese that could promote our Catholic identity. Monsignor and I worked very closely with those who organized the teachers in defining salary and benefits and creating a communications channel between the teachers and the archbishop’s office. “Catholic elementary schools are very, very important for this archdiocese, have been historically, and so we served as a liaison in some of those communications.” Kenrick continued on page C10
A saint with ‘a certain simplicity about him’
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he above depiction of St. Joseph and the Christ Child was produced by the Tyrolese Art Glass Co. in late-19th-century Germany for Our Lady of Mercy Church in Philadelphia. When the church was closed in the 1980s, some of its stained-glass windows were spared by a special arrangement between the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and a group at St. Joseph’s University, also in Philadelphia. The university’s stained-glass collection has been
THE EAST TENNESSEE CATHOLIC
featured in the book Stained Glass in Catholic Philadelphia (St. Joseph’s University Press, 2002). After discovering the image online, Diocese of Knoxville administrative assistant Janie Hennessy tracked it down and learned of its history. St. Joseph’s University Press granted permission for the diocese to use the artwork in connection with the ordination. The diocese’s ordination committee used the image on the event invitations, in the programs for the March 19 Mass
and the Vespers service the night before, and even on special lapel pins created to identify Chancery staff and special guests on the day of the ordination. Bishop Richard Stika is being ordained on March 19, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In an interview conducted in January, he said, “I’ve always liked St. Joseph. I’ve only rejected him one time. A few years ago I had bypass surgery, and Cardinal [Justin] Rigali came in
www.dioceseofknoxville.org
to be with me for that week. As I was going into the operating room, he said, ‘Let’s pray to St. Joseph,’ and I said, ‘Oh, Eminence, he’s the patron of a happy death, and I’m not ready.’ It’s the only time I’ve rejected him. “We don’t know a whole lot about Joseph, but we do know he was chosen by God to protect Jesus and to love Mary, and there was a certain simplicity about him. My approach to life is that we don’t have to overly complicate things.” ■
MARCH 22, 2009
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COURTESY OF ST. JOSEPH’S UNIVERSITY PRESS, PHILADELPHIA
Bishop Stika is among numerous grads of the seminary who have been elevated to the episcopacy. By Dan McWilliams