I am in Rome, one of my favorite places in the world. It’s not great weather (cold and drizzly) but still it is enchanting.

There are many Romes, of course. The Rome of history, the Rome of St. Peter and the Vatican, the Rome of culture and fashion, the Rome of wonderful food, crazy drivers and the mysterious Italian government.  All mix together to form a city of fascination and romance. I love it!

This afternoon I’m having lunch at one of the best restaurants in Rome, Da Roberto on the Via Borgo near the Vatican. My dear friend Archbishop Daniel introduced me to Da Roberto in 1996 and I’ve come back frequently. The specialty is pasta alla norcina which literally melts in your mouth! This visit is in the archbishop’s honor. He passed away on January 25 and was buried at Saint Meinrad on February 1st.

Later, I will take a taxi  to CESA, the Bio-Medical Center in Trigoria, where my friend Father Cassian Folsom, founder of the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, is recovering from knee replacement surgery. The surgery was successful and he is now in rehab. I’m eager to see him.

More to come...

Surprised by Grace, Again

I had the privilege of helping Indianapolis Archbishop Emeritus Daniel M. Buechlein, O.S.B. write his memoirs published by The Criterion Press in 2013 as Surprised by Grace: Memories and Reflections After Twenty-Five Years of Episcopal Ministry. It was a deeply moving experience for me which recalled images, conversations and shared insights from more than four decades of close association with this gifted man.

I first met Father Daniel (as he was known then) more than 50 years ago in August 1967 when I was a freshman at Saint Meinrad College in southern Indiana. He was Assistant Dean of Students and lived on the 4th floor of St. Bede Hall with us freshman. He was an extremely popular spiritual director, and the waiting area outside his combined office and room was always full of students waiting to see him.

That school year (1967-68) Father Daniel taught us History of Philosophy. It was not his area of expertise. (He had studied liturgy in Rome following his ordination to the priesthood.) And he freely admitted that he was just one or two chapters ahead of us in our textbook. Later, he taught me courses on liturgy and the sacraments, and I was amazed at his insights and understanding of the changes taking place in those turbulent times. It was clear that he welcomed the changes inspired by the Second Vatican Council—provided that they faithfully preserved the substance of the Church’s worship and belief.

Although he was a relatively young monk in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was quickly given positions of authority—first as Spiritual Director of Saint Meinrad College and then as President-Rector of Saint Meinrad School of Theology. He proved to be a good steward of these important responsibilities and an excellent pastoral leader. Father Daniel frequently told us that his first responsibility as a monk and priest, and as a seminary administrator, was to be a man of prayer.

I remember serving a private Mass for him at one of the side altars in the pre-renovation Archabbey Church at Saint Meinrad. His intense devotion to the mystery of the Eucharist was powerfully communicated to me then, and it was affirmed many times over the years as I attended countless public and private liturgies that he celebrated as a priest and then as a bishop. I can honestly say that although he was a very private man, his intense, intimate love for Christ was evident whenever he prayed but especially at Mass.

Archbishop Daniel was a man of prayer, first and foremost. But he was also a skilled administrator, a great pastoral leader. I have said that he was an intensely private man—probably “off the chart” when it came to introversion. Given a choice between being alone or with or few friends and meeting with crowds of people, there was never any question which he preferred. And yet, he knew his duty—his public role first as a seminary rector and then as a bishop. He worked hard at being a better public presence, improving his skill as a preacher and a public speaker. Although it did not come to him naturally (or with ease), he learned to “work the crowd” at gatherings of clergy, religious and lay leaders. He knew how important personal contact is, and he was determined to be a genuine pastoral presence in the seminary and in the two dioceses he served as bishop, Memphis and Indianapolis.

I worked closely with Father Daniel as Director of Development at Saint Meinrad and, later, when he became Archbishop of Indianapolis, as Secretary for Planning, Communications and Development. He wasn’t always easy to work for because he set incredibly high standards and demanded excellence. But I always knew what he wanted, and where I stood, in doing my job.

Archbishop Daniel was a master at surrounding himself with people who could work together to carry out the Church’s mission. He informed us, he inspired us and he involved us in his ministry as the chief pastor of the Archdiocese. Then he let us alone. (“No delegating up” was one of his favorite expressions.) He never micromanaged us, but he set clear expectations and was always there for us if we needed him. I believe this was his greatest gift as a pastoral leader. Combined with his absolute commitment to prayer and worship, Archbishop Daniel’s leadership style “worked” beautifully. In collaboration with his brother priests, his fellow religious women and men, and the lay faithful of west Tennessee and central and southern Indiana, he built up the Church in ways that were faithful both to authentic Catholic Tradition and to the teaching of Vatican II.

Although poor health forced him to resign as archbishop a couple of years before his 75th birthday, his legacy is clear. He was a man of prayer. He was a skilled pastoral leader. And he was a devoted son, brother, confrere and friend.

Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, OSB, returned to the Lord on January 25, 2018. May he rest in peace.

Daniel Conway    

I am proud to call myself a disciple of Pope Benedict—both now and when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. By God’s grace, he has been a blessing for our Church. 

He is unrivaled as an astute and balanced theologian. I have little patience with his critics, who often enough have never read his writings. Anyone who reads what Joseph Ratzinger has written—either before or after his election as pope—can see that he is never heavy-handed or rigid, but always speaks the mind of the Church, as he understands it, with a firm but gentle voice. 

Pope Benedict is a person who knows how to speak the truth with love. In my dozen or so encounters with him, I found him to be engaging, humble and serene. Several times, I met him on the street on his way to or from a bookstore. He wore a simple black cassock. He stopped to visit for a few minutes, and he had a phenomenal memory for names. In fact, once when our paths crossed, Cardinal Ratzinger smiled, waved his finger at me and said, “Ah, yes, büchlein, büchlein, the little book” which is what my surname (Buechlein) means in German!

While a lover of the tradition and heritage of the Church, Pope Benedict is thoroughly committed to the complete implementation of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. He knows the origins and development of the Council’s documents because he was there and had a direct hand in crafting several of them. He is also thoroughly acquainted with the Church Fathers and with the development of the Church’s doctrines during the past two millennia.

This pope is a profound exponent of the complimentarity of faith and reason in a society that wants to relegate God and religion to the private sector as if they are irrelevant to the economic, political and cultural realities of the modern world. He is an ardent champion for the dignity of human life, and he is a sensitive man, who is both sophisticated and simple—a holy, gentle man. 

From Surprised by Grace: Memories and Reflections on Twenty-Five Year’s of Episcopal Ministry by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, OSB, who returned to the Lord on January 25, 2018. 

St.Teresa of Calcutta used to say that loneliness is the worst poverty in the United States. Families that support one another—and their neighbors and friends—respond to this spiritual poverty in important ways. 

Did not Jesus intend that the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ should draw families together, and that the family should be the place of our salvation against the chaos and the confusion that is still so much a part of our world?

In a world of broken families, surely Jesus wanted us, his Church, to be family, a community of faith. And surely Jesus intended that our homes should be the cells which form the family that is the Church. And so every time we receive the holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ and the sacrament of unity and charity, we participate in a celebration of the one family of God.

From Surprised by Grace: Memories and Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Episcopal Ministry by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, OSB, who returned to the Lord, January 25, 2018, following a long illness.

What kind of healing can I realistically expect from the manifold graces of the anointing of the sick?

The answer that came to me in prayer is “liberation”—freedom from the domination of pain and infirmity. The greatest temptation that sick people have is to give in to hopelessness and despair. Self-absorption is a consequence of intense pain and suffering. The danger is that we will think only of ourselves, of our suffering and our aloneness. For many of us who are ill, healing includes “letting go” of our preoccupation with self and “giving back to the Lord” the depression and discomfort that are the consequences of our illnesses—whatever they happen to be.

From Surprised by Grace: Memories and Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Episcopal Ministry, Chapter 4, “Liberation” by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, OSB who returned to the Lord on January 28, 2018 following a long illness.