By Tricia Hempel

ARCHDIOCESE — The man who was at the top of Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk’s "very short list" of whom he’d want as coadjutor archbishop has been named to that job by Pope Benedict XVI.

The appointment of Bishop Dennis M. Schnurr of Duluth, Minn., was announced Oct. 17 in Washington by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and here in Cincinnati at a morning press conference at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral.

"When I received the call from the nuncio three weeks ago, he said, ‘When the nuncio calls, it’s always good news,’" Archbishop Schnurr, 60, told reporters gathered in the cathedral’s Synod Hall. "Having worked at the nunciature, I know that’s not always true. But in this case, it was — I was speechless."

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Archbishop Schnurr

"A coadjutor is named to help the incumbent, and I’ve said for 25 or 26 years I need all the help I can get! Archbishop Schnurr will be my helper until I retire or die, whichever comes first," Archbishop Pilarczyk said with a chuckle. "A big question now for some of our people may be, ‘When are you going to retire?’ I asked the nuncio about that — if it’s up to Archbishop Schnurr and me to decide when I can retire. He said, ‘No, you’re not even 75. First become 75, and then we’ll speak about it.’"

"I think every priest in the archdiocese has known for some time exactly how many days and hours until my retirement," Archbishop Pilarczyk added. "Now at least they’ll know what they’re going to get."

What they’re going to get is a bishop attuned to the challenges facing the church — but without any pretense that he has the answers.

Archbishop Dennis Schnurr was born in Sheldon, Iowa, on June 21, 1948 and raise in nearby Hospers (current population 668), where his mother, Eleanor, still resides. He attended St. Anthony School there and Spalding Catholic High School in Granville, earning a bachelor’s degree at Loras College in Dubuque. He studied for the priesthood at North American College and the Gregorian University in Rome, where he earned a master’s degree in theology in 1974, the same year he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa. He was awarded a doctorate in canon law from the Catholic University of America in 1980.

Following ordination to the priesthood he was associate pastor at the Cathedral of the Epiphany and at Blessed Sacrament Church in Sioux City, while also working in the bishop’s office as vice chancellor, chancellor, finance officer and judge of the diocesan tribunal.

In 1985 then-Father Schnurr was named to the staff of the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. The nuncio is the ambassador of the pope to a particular nation and also his representative to the Catholic hierarchy in that nation.

Just four years later he was named associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he supervised public policy departments and was principal staff person for an assessment and overhaul of the conference’s budget and staffing procedures.

From 1991 to 1993 Bishop Schnurr also served as the national executive director of World Youth Day 1993. In this capacity, he oversaw the preparations for and implementation of a five-day international gathering of young people in Denver sponsored by the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for the Laity. The event included the participation of nearly 500,000 young people and the personal participation of Pope John Paul II.

During this time, he was also named a prelate of honor by Pope John Paul II, with the title of "Monsignor." The honor was conferred during a private audience with the pope at which his parents were present.

"It was a complete surprise to me,’’ he told Catholic News Service following the event. After a Mass with more than 300 bishops, archbishops and cardinals, there was an opportunity for the parents of some World Youth Day officials to meet the pope.

"As the Holy Father walked into the room, his personal secretary asked him, ‘Your Holiness, do you know Msgr. Schnurr?’" He thought little of it, since Vatican officials routinely used the honorific title with him on his visits to Rome. But as the question was asked, "That’s when he handed me the parchment," Archbishop Schnurr said of the pope. "It lasted all of 15 seconds.... My parents didn’t know what it was all about. They asked me what the parchment was that the pope had given me. I told them the parchment said that I was now a monsignor.’"

He remembers World Youth Day most not because of that honor, but because World Youth Day "was really a life-transforming experience, because it gave me a new awareness of the potential that we have in our young people and the eagerness of our young people to make a contribution to the church," he said.

In 1995 the bishops elected him general secretary of their conference. In this position, he oversaw the overall operation of the conference, supervised a staff of approximately 350 people, managed an annual budget of $50 million, arranged for and participated in meetings which brought together the bishops’ conferences of the Western Hemisphere, and staffed the semi-annual visits of the NCCB/USCCB president and vice-president with the offices of the Roman Curia.

CNS PHOTO BY SAM LUCERO, CATHOLIC HERALD

Bishop Raymond Lucker of New Ulm, Minn., lays hands on Bishop Dennis Schnurr during his ordination as bishop April 2, 2001, in Duluth, Minn. Bishop Schnurr, former general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, became the eighth Bishop of Duluth.

Despite spending15 years in Washington, he said that from the time he arrived he regarded it as a temporary posting.

"It got to be longer than I’d anticipated, but I enjoyed it very, very much,’’ he said at the time of his appointment as Bishop of Duluth in 2001. "But at the same time, I’m a Midwesterner at heart, I always have been. I like the Midwest, I would take all my vacations in the Midwest. My brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews all live in the Midwest. It’s a fine part of the country. My roots are there.

"So I had always intended to return to the Midwest," he added.

He was named Bishop of Duluth on Jan. 18, 2001 and ordained April 2. Duluth, which encompasses more than 22,000 square miles and is geographically larger than the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, has a Catholic population of about 72,000 — about one-eighth of Cincinnati’s Catholic population. The diocese is in the northeast corner of Minnesota.

Following his appointment to Duluth, Bishop Schnurr, who speaks Italian and has a reading knowledge of French and Spanish, said he hoped to find time for a favorite hobby, gardening. He expressed this to a Minnesota gardener, who told him, "Well, let me give you a very short course. If you raise flowers, be prepared to have the deer eat them. If you raise root vegetables or fruit or anything sweet, be prepared to have the black bears eat them. And if you try to raise any type of small animal, be prepared to have a fox carry them off."

"So I said, ‘Kind of a bleak picture.’ Nonetheless, we’ll work with it," the bishop recalled.

In Cincinnati last week, he again expressed hope that he might find time for this hobby. Since he will be living on the beautiful campus of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Mount Washington, it’s possible he will be able to cultivate a patch of garden he can call his own.

"I am not in any way naïve enough to think that I don’t have a great deal to learn about the Archdiocese of Cincinnati," he reflected Oct. 17. It was only the third time he has visited Cincinnati. "I hope Archbishop Pilarczyk will prolong his [time until] retirement."

"I have very big shoes to fill," Archbishop Schnurr added. "I know Archbishop Pilarczyk’s work, I know how thorough he is, and I look forward to being part of his administration. I’ve known him for 20 years; we have worked on several large projects together."

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Archbishop Pilarczyk gave Archbishop Schnurr a tour of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary on Oct. 17, which included a visit to the Romanesque Chapel of St. Gregory the Great.

Archbishop Pilarczyk believes the transition process will be a smooth one.

"For some time, six months or so, we will travel together. I will break him into the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and Priests Council. I hope at some point I will begin to decrease my time, and he will begin to increase. We will work together toward a seamless transition."

Archbishop Pilarczyk has some simple plans for his retirement. "For 26 years I have led the archdiocese, and I am grateful for that. But after 25-26 years, one is inclined to get a little tired . . . I have ideas about writing, speaking and reading. I have a whole shelf of books waiting to be read."

Asked what his biggest challenge in the past 26 years has been, the archbishop said simply, "survival."

"One of the things I learned is not to micromanage. Give people a job, delegate, let them do the job. My advice to Archbishop Schnurr will be, don’t try to do it all yourself."

Archbishop Schnurr said he believed that Catholics in Duluth "would say I am one who takes charge of the administration of the diocese, but they also see I’ve much enjoyed being out in the diocese, out and about among people. . . . I spent a lot of time on the road."

He added that he has yet to form any priorities for his work in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. "I don’t come with any preconceived notions. I have to first get to know the archdiocese, learn what programs are here."

In Duluth, one of his priorities has been vocations.

"I am very interested in vocations, so I made myself vocations director. In seven-and-a-half years we have tripled our vocations," he said. "I don’t claim responsibility, but I made it a priority, so it became [so for others]."

Father Eric Hastings, Duluth’s vice chancellor, told the Duluth News Tribune that "Bishop Schnurr gave our diocese great hope, and that was manifested in a dramatic increase in the number of seminarians to the priesthood. He just had a way of inspiring young people." When the bishop first arrived in Duluth, there were eight men in priestly formation. Currently there are 23.

CT/TRICIA HEMPEL

Archbishop Schnurr’s whirlwind visit to Cincinnati included a meeting with the archdiocesan department directors, including Kathleen Donnellan, director of Community Services, and Father Len Wenke, director of Pastoral Services.

He also specifically noted last week that he enjoys youth and young adult ministry. Even in terms of sporting events, he would prefer to watch "sports on the high school level, because I enjoy seeing the commitment of young people to their sport and to their schools."

Archbishop Schnurr made national headlines in 2006 when he canceled the appearance of Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille Helen Prejean at a diocesan education dinner after she signed a full-page New York Times advertisement sponsored by an organization called World Can’t Wait. It called for Americans to "drive out the Bush regime," for a list of reasons including "the murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq" and policies such as support of torturing prisoners, jailing people without charges and "moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion."

Duluth diocesan communications director Kyle Eller said at the time the inflammatory nature of the campaign — and especially its partisan component, targeting a particular civic leader — made Sister Helen’s appearance at a diocesan event inappropriate.

Sister Helen later asked that her name be removed from World Can’t Wait’s online ad. Her clarification said the ad addressed one issue "that I cannot endorse [abortion], which if I had seen the final version of the ad, would have led me to withhold my signature." In canceling the event, Archbishop Schnurr sent Sister Prejean an honorarium with a request that it be donated to her Moratorium Campaign against the death penalty.

Asked if he would call himself a conservative or a liberal, Archbishop Schnurr said he dislikes such terms. "Pope John Paul II once said, ‘What does conservative mean? If it means to be faithful to the teachings of the church, then yes, I am.’"

Cincinnati’s new coadjutor archbishop believes that the biggest challenge the church faces is that the bishops need "to help Catholics rediscover their faith, helping them to form well-informed consciences."

He noted that the bishops are eager to provide Catholics with solid catechetical instruction.

"The catechetical texts of the 1970s and 1980s were not what they should be," he said. "Today we have very fine catechetical materials. Now the task is to help form teachers who are well versed in those texts."

Bishop Schnurr’s episcopal motto, Quaerite faciem Domini — "Seek the face of the Lord," is drawn from Psalm 104 and expresses the conviction that Christ’s followers must always look to Christ as the focal point for their pilgrim journey on earth.

After his press conference and a day spent visiting Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and meeting with archdiocesan office directors, Archbishop Schnurr returned to Minnesota Oct. 18, to, as he said, "explain myself to the people of Duluth." He will return to Cincinnati for good on Nov. 30, and a "Mass of welcome" is scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 7, 2:30 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains. Parishes will receive a number of tickets for the Mass, and a reception following will be open to the public.

In his Oct. 17 statements to Cincinnati and Duluth Catholics, Archbishop Schnurr thanked his late father Edward, his mother, Eleanor, and other family members for their support. The bishop is one of six children — with three sisters and two brothers: Delores Schultes and her husband, Marvin, of Hastings, Neb.; Carolyn Arens and her husband, Larry, of Remsen, Iowa; Irene Foreman of Alton, Iowa; Richard Schnurr and his wife, Judy, of Hospers, Iowa; Michael Schnurr of Alton, Iowa.

When asked if he had a prayer for the people of Cincinnati, Archbishop Schnurr recalled that earlier this year, Pope Benedict said that "a bishop is to bring hope to a diocese."

That, he said, would be his wish for Cincinnati. "Not that hope is not already here, but to build upon it — that is my prayer. To rejoice in it. A bishop is to bring hope to his people."