Fr. Dan Belanger Stirs Things Up at St. George Parish Fr. Daniel Belanger, CSV, finds himself in a rare predicament: his religious education classes at St. George Church in Bourbonnais are full, and he has to cutoff enrollment. “It’s a first,” he declares. “We’ve never had these kinds of numbers.”
Fr. Belanger describes himself as an “extrovert” who has so many ideas and unlimited energy that at times he has to force himself to slow down. “They call me Fr. Tornado," Fr. Belanger concedes. However, coming into the parish in his first assignment as a pastor, he took a thoughtful, measured, approach. “I started with the liturgy,” he says. “I felt if people were nourished spiritually, they would come.”
The growth in students reflects the overall expansion of the parish. Since Fr. Belanger was assigned as the pastor of St. George, the number of families Fr. Dan Belanger, CSV registered has nearly tripled. When he arrived in 2009, there were 105 families in the parish. At last count, according to Viatorian Associate Susan Surprenant, the number has grown to more than 275 families. “It’s his enthusiasm,” Susan says. “It’s infectious.”
And come they did. Fr. Belanger started a garden committee, which undertook sprucing up the landscaping on church grounds. Now they are in the process of adding a memorial grotto and rosary garden. He also started an art and environment committee to enhance the church interior. They immediately acted to have the stained glass windows installed, which had been obtained from an abandoned church. The next project included bringing in a new organ and redesigning the choir loft that surrounded it. “With improved liturgy
Celebrating Our Jubilarians Fr. James Fanale, CSV
Indiana. While teaching part-time at DePaul University in Chicago, he worked at the Viatorian Province Center researching the history of the founding of the Viatorian Province of Chicago.
As a longtime student, teacher, researcher, poet and pastor, Fr. James Fanale, CSV, comes to the mark of 50 years as a Viatorian. A close friend of his says, “Jim is the unique sort of person who takes the layer of the ordinary and lifts it off to come to the layer of the extraordinary. He does this in many aspects: humor, beauty, whether in nature, art, friendship and shared life itself. Those who know him are willing to be persistent so as to make their own lives a little lighter and at the same time deeper and more joyful.”
Since 1996, he has been the pastor of the small country parish of St. Anne in St. Anne, IL, where he has been able to unite all of his gifts as teacher, scholar, artist and religious priest. Fr. John Linnan, CSV Like so many Viatorians, Fr. John Linnan attended Cathedral Boys High School/Griffin High School in Springfield. He was a member of the first group of Viatorians who completed their novitiate in Arlington Heights.
Fr. Fanale, like many Viatorians, graduated from Griffin High School in Springfield and entered the Clerics of St. Viator in 1960. He has been a lifelong learner and a humble scholar. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Loyola University in Chicago and his master’s degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Both degrees were in English literature. He was ordained a priest in 1969. By 1986, he earned his doctorate in Medieval English literature from the University of Illinois in Champaign.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. His seminary studies were completed at Louvain University in Belgium where he was ordained on April 3, 1961, his birthday. It was at Louvain University that he completed his postgraduate studies and was awarded, cum laude, his doctorate in sacred theology. For his thesis, he wrote on the evangelical background of Cardinal John Henry Newman. In his years of seminary teaching, his specialty was doctrinal theology. During the course of his ministry, he taught high school at Spalding Institute in Peoria, worked as a campus minister at the Center for Religion and Life in Reno, and served as the pastor at Our Lady of Wisdom in Reno, and Maternity BVM. He directed many retreats for a variety of groups across the country.
For the first 10 years of his teaching career, Fr. Fanale was assigned to Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee. While completing his doctoral program at the University of Illinois, he taught in the English department. Between 1986 and 1990, he taught at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, 4