Fr. Stephen Schenck,
SDB (1952-2012)
Fr. Stephen Charles Schenck, SDB, pastor of Holy Rosary Church in Port
Chester, N.Y., died
suddenly of a heart attack in the parish rectory on Saturday morning, Nov. 10. Medics tried in vain to revive him, and he was
pronounced dead on arrival at Greenwich
Hospital.
Fr. Steve, 59, had been Holy Rosary’s pastor since
mid-2009. Last year he celebrated his 40th anniversary of religious profession
as a Salesian of Don Bosco.
Father
Schenck was the son of the late Charles and Eileen Bolster Schenck. He was born
in Brooklyn on November 25, 1952, and baptized at Holy Family
Church on Flatlands Avenue on
December 14. He was raised in Malverne on Long Island,
however, where the family worshiped at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish and Steve
attended parochial school and was confirmed in 1964. He maintained a warm
relationship with the parish for the rest of his life.
Steve
entered Salesian Junior Seminary in Goshen,
N.Y., in 1966 and graduated in
June 1970. He was admitted to the novitiate, located in Ipswich, Mass.,
on August 31, 1970. His master of novices was Father Theodore Ciampi. He and 19
classmates—13 from the New Rochelle Province and 6 from the San
Francisco Province—professed first vows in Newton, N.J., on September 1, 1971.
Bro. Steve spent the next four years as a student of
philosophy at Don Bosco College Seminary in Newton and graduated on May 31, 1975, with a
B.A. summa cum laude. During these years he developed the musical and dramatic
skills that would serve him and young people so well during the years of his
pastoral ministry.
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Fr. Steve was really happy when at a keyboard. Here he performs a hymn during the Rector Major's visit to the Marian Shrine in 2007.
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While
he was in college he was diagnosed with diabetes, which had already begun to
show itself during his last year of high school and which was to afflict him
for the rest of his life and perhaps contributed to his sudden and untimely
death. But, his confrere Fr. Steve Shafran said, “He never let his health
challenges get in the way of throwing himself into service for others.”
At various summer camp assignments over the years, he
“developed visual aid/skit catechetical programs,” according to one personnel
inventory that he filled out.
Bro. Steve was assigned to Salesian Preparatory School in
Cedar Lake, Ind., for practical training, where he taught Spanish, Latin,
algebra, and a philosophy elective, and directed the band and choir. He also
accumulated a store of memories, many of them hilarious, with which he regaled
his confreres in future years.
In 1977 Bro. Steve began his theological studies at the
Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington,
Ohio. Once again he excelled
academically, graduating with an M.A. in theology summa cum laude. His master’s
thesis was titled “The Pneumatic Ecclesiology of Heribert Mühlen.” Mühlen
(1927-2006) was a German Catholic theologian whose “work is concentrated
mostly on pneumatology [theology of the Holy Spirit], ecclesiology
and pastoral theology,” according to Wikipedia.
He had three principal fields
of apostolate during his years in Columbus:
working with the diocesan Office of Youth Ministry (1978-1979), serving as a
pastoral counselor for seventh and eighth graders at St. Cecilia School (1979-1980), and serving as deacon at
St. Leo Church and pastoral counselor for seventh and eighth graders in its
parochial school.
Fr. Steve and 7 other men of the New
Rochelle Province were
ordained by Bishop Edward Hermann of Columbus at
Christ the King Church
in Columbus on May
23, 1981. To the province leadership he identified as his preferred pastoral
fields “DRA activities, counselling, positions where I would be able to be
musically and dramatically involved.” Over the next 31 years his preferences
were very much realized, to the benefit of students, parishioners, retreatants,
and confreres.
Fr. Steve’s first priestly assignment was to Don Bosco
Technical HS in Paterson, N.J. (1981-1986), where he was director of
religious activities (DRA). His musical talent came out strongly in his work
with the young men of Don Bosco as he composed a number of hymns in a style
that appeals to young people. In this period he composed “Friend of the Young
and the Poor” in honor of St. John Bosco, which proved so popular that it has
remained a favorite at Salesian celebrations across the U.S., and in
other countries too.
A three-year stint followed at the Salesian
Center for Youth Ministry in Goshen (1986-1989)
leading youth retreats and other programs. In 1988 he began studies in
religious education and youth ministry at Fordham University,
which resulted in an M.S. degree in 1990.
Fr. Steve’s first assignment to Holy Rosary Parish came in
1989, when he was posted there as assistant pastor for two years with
responsibility particularly for youth ministry. In 1991 he moved to the Marian
Shrine in Haverstraw-Stony Point,
N.Y., and began two 3-year terms on
the provincial council with oversight and guidance responsibilities for the
province’s youth ministry programs.
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| Fr. Steve (2d from left) joins other priest jubilarians renewing their priestly commitment in 2006, when he celebrated 25 years as a priest |
As the New
Rochelle Province
celebrated the centennial of its foundation in 1998, Fr. Steve served on the
committee planning various festivities. Fr. Shafran served with him and
remembers: “We had worked together closely when I was on the vocation team in
Stony Point at the same time he was province coordinator for youth ministry,
but it was when we were asked to collaborate on the celebrations at the Felt
Forum of Madison Square Garden in New York that I came to see his extraordinary
talents come alive. [He showed] humble service, hard work, extreme and total
dedication to the young and the poor, total dedication to the educational
approach of St. John Bosco and consummate belief in the Salesian principles
that are foundational to our views on youth ministry—that, together with his
gift of music … as a means for prayer and reaching the young.”
A second assignment to Don Bosco Tech in Paterson came at the end of his 6 years on
the provincial council in 1997. As director of the school, he labored mightily
to provide a sound education for the poorest boys in Paterson and to keep the school afloat
financially. He took a personal interest in each confrere, member of the staff,
and student, encouraging and correcting as need be, deeply appreciative of each
one’s contributions to the life of the school or the community, or to himself
in his coping with diabetes. In the face of the school’s aging buildings, as
well as the demographics of the area, raising sufficient funds proved to be a
losing fight—not in Fr. Steve’s eyes but in those of the province leadership,
who decided in December 2001 to close the school at the end of the school year
in May 2002. It was a hard blow for Fr. Steve to absorb (as well as for many
other people).
He headed south in 2002, to Miami, for a less stressful responsibility as
assistant pastor of St. Kieran Church. The parochial experience was prelude to
a more serious pastoral responsibility in 2003, when he was named pastor of the
Church of the Nativity in Washington, D.C., and superior of the Salesian
community staffing the parish and Don Bosco Cristo Rey HS in Takoma Park, Md.
Fr. Steve’s pastoral sensitivities and his musical talents
both struck powerful chords in the Washington
parish. He relished bringing the parish’s fine Gospel choir to province events,
such as the visit of the Rector Major to the Marian Shrine in 2007. Bro. Tom Sweeney
of the Washington Salesian community writes: “His love for the arts also spread
to Nativity’s parishioners. Before Christmas, he would organize a bus to go to New York to see a play, have a nice dinner, and stay
overnight at Stony Point or a hotel. He was
the life of the party and enjoyed every moment of it.” Fr. Steve also put
together a group of young musicians and singers, from Washington and elsewhere, to cut a CD of his
music, called “The God Who Is True to Me,” released late in 2009.
Bro. Tom also remembers: “Steve loved to cook. It was
total relaxation for him just to go into the kitchen and prepare a delicious
meal for the community on some Sundays and feasts. He always made sure all the
ingredients were fresh and were the best. He would play a favorite CD as he
prepared the meal. While waiting for something to be cooked, he would be doing crossword
puzzles. He would serve the meal and then sit down to enjoy the meal and all
the accolades that would be lavished on him by the community. He wanted to make
sure that the community had a great meal and would just relax and enjoy each
other’s company during the meal. He was a community type of guy.”
Taking a half day or full day off each week, Bro. Tom
continues, Fr. Steve would go for a bike ride or a movie and then speak of his
day’s adventure at dinner with the community, discussions that both he and the
confreres much enjoyed.
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| With his usual elan, Fr. Steve entertains his family at the reception after the province's jubilees celebration in 2011 |
Bro. Tom concludes: “I know I will truly miss him—living with
him in the seminary, attending Fordham with him as we both were going for our
Masters, and having him as my director here in Washington. But most
important, he was truly a friend and a true Salesian. It is sad that the
young and new confreres will never know him and also realize the impact that he
had on the province and on individuals.”
When his term as director ended in 2009, Fr. Steve was sent back
to Holy Rosary Parish in Port Chester, this
time as pastor. Succeeding the very popular and zealous Fr. Tim Ploch, he had
big shoes to fill—which he did. He had already learned a good amount of
Spanish, and he honed that skill in his daily interactions with the parish’s
largely immigrant population.
As pastor of Holy Rosary, he was involved in the training
of the Salesian novices of the United
States in 2009-2011, while the novitiate was
located at the parish, particularly their apostolic work like teaching CCD and
working in the youth center. This year he was similarly involved with the New Rochelle Province’s prenovices, who moved into
the parish at the end of August.
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| Fr. Steve, at right, joined Fr. Tom Dunne and Fr. Bill Keane, at the altar for the 1st profession in August 2011, in Holy Rosary Church |
He also offered warm hospitality each August to the
Salesian Lay Missioners and Salesian Domestic Volunteers during their orientation period, during which they
spent a week working in the summer camp of the two Salesian parishes of Port Chester; this year they resided in the parishes for
two weeks instead of one, as previously. Adam
Rudin, director of the SLM program, laments Fr. Steve's loss: “Fr.
Steve was such a blessing to the Salesian Lay Missioner program in the years
that I have been affiliated, both as an SLM and as director. Fr. Steve was
one of the biggest advocates of the program and really seemed to ‘get it.’ He
was a master at integrating lay missioners into a community of vowed religious
and was great at orienting newly commissioned lay missioners on what the
realities are like in community life. I think that’s the word that keeps coming
up when I reflect on Fr. Steve: community.”
One of the SLMs, Paula Rendon, writes
from Ethiopia: “I am deeply saddened to hear that he is no longer with us—even
though we only got to know him for a couple of weeks, he was an integral part
of our formation and preparation for our year of mission.”
Typical of his personal approach to people is what he
showed to Fr. Paul Grauls, who had been his vice director and assistant pastor
in Washington: “On the day of my 50th [anniversary]
at Stony Point [last September], Steve came up
to me in the vesting room, gave me a warm kiss and very special wishes. I had
not seen him since he left Nativity.”
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Fr. Steve was chosen to speak for all the jubilarians in 2011, and he did so with his customary humor and eloquence
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On the occasion of his fortieth anniversary of religious
profession in 2011, Fr. Steve said: “I have enjoyed my years of priestly
service, especially all those things that involved me with young people. I
have found that my interactions with them, especially the poorest among them,
have taught me at least as much as my formal studies have, if not more. Above
all, it’s been in the active ministry that I have experienced the presence of
God in my life, and I count myself blessed to have received and followed this
vocation.”
Fr. Shafran sums up his reaction to Fr. Steve’s life and
death thus: “I greatly appreciated his wisdom, sensitivity, writing, preaching
and spirit of joy—what a great sense of humor! What a gift he has been to the
province! What a void this leaves in us. I am greatly saddened and know that
many, many others who had the benefit of Steve in their lives feel the same—a
great feeling of emptiness in the gut ... but with great faith we must see that
the Lord has welcomed this holy man of God and faithful Salesian to himself.”
From
Chile,
Father Harry Peterson, SDB, one of Fr. Steve’s high school teachers,
writes: “He has ALWAYS been an inspiration. Steve’s profound sense of what’s
right, of what’s Salesian, his tremendous dedication to put to good use, with
great simplicity, his keen intelligence and many gifts, have made him the son
of God, in the charism of Don Bosco, that has enhanced and rejoiced our whole
province.”
Fr. Pascual Chavez, Rector Major of the Salesians, wrote this to Fr. Tom Dunne today: "I
had the opportunity to meet him several times, first as regional councilor for
the Interamerica Region when he was the director of Paterson, and then as Rector
Major, and I can tell you that he gave me a wonderful impression because of his
great Salesian identity, of his love for the poor and those most in need, well
expressed in his songs. At the same time, I was witness of his illness, but the news of his death has
been for me a great surprise. The last time I met him was in Washington [in 2007],
so my mind and my heart are full of beautiful memories of him."
Fr.
Steve is survived by his sisters Eileen Gavigan and Patricia Schenck,
brothers William and Mark, eight nephews and nieces, and three grandnephews.
Fr. Steve was waked in the parish church on Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 12-13, including Rosary and Mass each evening. Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop emeritus of New York, presided over the Mass of Christian Burial on Wednesday morning, and our provincial, Fr. Tom Dunne, preached. Burial in the province cemetery followed.
A day or 2 later, Sr. Teresa Gutierrez, FMA, send me a couple of short video clips of Fr. Steve making a presentation to the teachers of the sisters' 2 South Florida schools as part of their orientation for the new school year last August. They're not a complete presentation by any means, but they do give a taste of Fr. Steve's style:
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