The retired priests of the Diocese of Columbus no longer must perform the daily responsibilities of a pastor, but most still serve the Church and say that no longer dealing with daily pastoral duties has benefited their spiritual growth.
“I don’t know where our diocese would be, or any diocese for that matter, without the tireless and dedicated work and ministry of our senior priests,” said Father Michael Lumpe, diocesan vicar for senior and infirm priests. “There needs to be a collective shout from the rooftops: ‘Thank God for our senior priests!’”
The retirees include two priests who have served as bishop of Columbus – Bishop Emeritus James Griffin and Bishop Emeritus Frederick Campbell.
Bishop Griffin, 88, was shepherd of the Diocese of Columbus for 21 years and has been retired for nearly as long. He has lived in a condo in Powell for the 18 years since his retirement as bishop for health reasons in 2004. He thinks that early retirement is the best thing he could have done for himself.
“I’m feeling very, very good these days,” he said. “I had my knees replaced after retiring, and it’s been a great boon to my health. When I retired, especially on days when I had to do confirmations, I was taking Tylenol all the time because the pain in my knees was intense. The knee operations changed all that.
“I kept a busy schedule through most of my retirement until COVID hit in mid-March of 2020. I dropped back then because everything closed down and because my siblings and I had a history of lung problems, so I felt I had to be careful.”
Before COVID, Bishop Griffin served as a weekend associate priest at Powell St. Joan of Arc Church and played golf often. “I no longer go to St. Joan of Arc every weekend, but I will still celebrate Mass in a church on occasion if a priest finds himself in tight conditions,” he said.
“I continue to go to all the diocesan clergy gatherings, including priests’ funerals, and sometimes hear confessions at penance services.
“As far as golf, the best way to put things is that I go to the golf course (one is adjacent to his home) more than I play golf. I have an altar at home, so I still say Mass every day. One advantage is that I don’t have to prepare a daily homily.
“What I appreciate most about retirement is the freedom from the pressures a bishop faces. As a bishop, my activities were scheduled from day into night. I was able to do great things and enjoy them, but it’s been nice to ask, ‘What do I want to do today?’ and not already know the answer,” Bishop Griffin said.
“Old age has been a gift from God because of how it’s allowed me to look back and appreciate what I’ve done, to live in the present and enjoy the opportunities of each day and to look forward to the joy of returning to God. At my age, death is a constant thought. I feel ready for it, and when I get up every morning, the first thing I do is say, ‘God, thank you for this day.’”
Bishop Campbell, who turns 79 on Aug. 5, succeeded Bishop Griffin and led the diocese from 2005-2019. He lives in retirement in northeast Franklin County.
He has been teaching at the Pontifical College Josephinum since his retirement. He originally taught one course on preaching homilies and one on American history and now is teaching two American history classes – one on the nation in general and the other on the Catholic Church’s role in the United States.
“Returning to the Josephinum has been a very good experience,” he said. “What’s especially interesting is that I taught American history there in 1967 while I was a graduate student at Ohio State, and now I’m teaching the same course today, but with the last 60 years of history added.
“My students today look at the Vietnam War and Watergate as things of the past, and these were things I lived through. For each generation, history ends where your own story begins. For me, history ended with the close of World War II, which occurred when I was an infant in Elmira, New York.”
Besides teaching, Bishop Campbell continues the weekly “Living the Catholic Life” radio talks he began on St. Gabriel Radio in Columbus and southern Ohio while he was the diocese’s spiritual leader, and he helps out at parishes as needed. In July and August 2019, he traveled to the four parishes in the Perry County Consortium as weekend associate when Father Daniel Swartz, who had been parochial vicar there, began service as a military chaplain.
He also did “a lot of ‘bishop work’” in the period between the departure of his successor, Bishop Robert Brennan, in late November of last year and the installation of Bishop Earl Fernandes on May 31. This included the celebration of the annual diocesan Chrism Mass and of Holy Week services and the ordination of Deacon PeterClaver Kasasa Kiviiri, all at St. Joseph Cathedral. Bishops Brennan, Campbell and Griffin served as co-consecrators at Bishop Fernandes’ installation.
“I’m not idle by any means, but it certainly is nice having a schedule that’s much more flexible than what I had as bishop,” Bishop Campbell said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to do more study and reading and to be available to fill the kind of needs that always arise in parishes when something unexpected happens.”
“People tell me I’m not retired, and I understand why they feel that way,” said Father Homer Blubaugh, 78, who retired in 2012. “Retirement started out slowly, but it seems like I’ve been busy for most of the last six years.”
He said he has driven about 30,000 miles a year during that time from his Danville home, primarily serving parishes there and in Sunbury, Millersburg, Glenmont, Coshocton and Newcomerstown, and occasionally in Franklin County. He was called to help at those places because of priests’ deaths, illnesses, retirements and COVID.
“Most of what I’ve done these last few years has been away from my home parish, Danville St. Luke,” he said. “One major thing I did complete for St. Luke’s was an updating of the parish history book for its 200th anniversary. I also enjoy the chance to attend the lunches which the retired diocesan priests have once a month on Thursdays at various Columbus restaurants.”
Father Richard Metzger, 81, lives in Reynoldsburg, where he is recuperating after breaking his hip in February. Until then, he had been celebrating Masses at Reynoldsburg St. Pius X Church for the past several years since retiring in 2016.
He said he chose to live in Reynoldsburg because of its proximity to Mount Carmel East Hospital and its physicians and because St. Pius was not a parish where he had been pastor.
“If I were to go back to somewhere I had been, it would be harder to leave there because of all the people you get to know at a place,” he said. “There’s also the possibility that people compare you and the current pastor, and that can be difficult for both of you.
“It’s great to be in charge of your own schedule, but sometimes it seems like the reason you retire is so you can be sure to make it to all your doctor’s appointments. It’s hard to do, but you have to recognize your abilities and your energy are more limited at 60 than they were at 40, and even more so at 75 when compared to 60.
“The priests who are now around 60 will be surprised how their health situation is going to adjust their lives. You can deny things up to a point, but eventually the time comes when you can’t deny much because reality has overtaken things.”
Father Metzger said that until recently, the availability resulting from his retirement allowed him to preside at about 20 funerals per year, mainly of former parishioners, to hear confessions at penance services and to perform the sacrament of anointing of the sick.
“People know my phone number and where I live, and they do search me out,” he said. “I’ve always been glad to help when I can but have to step back for now.”
Father Metzger is one of four brothers and a cousin who became priests of the Columbus diocese. Two of the brothers and the cousin are deceased. The other brother, Father Stephen Metzger, lives near the family’s home in Perry County.
Also serving at Reynoldsburg St. Pius X is Msgr. Patrick Gaughan, 79, a priest of the Diocese of Steubenville for 54 years, who was pastor of St. Paul Church in Athens and chaplain at Ohio University from 1985 until his retirement in 2013. He decided to make his retirement home in the Columbus area because several relatives live there.
He echoed his fellow priests in saying, “My biggest surprise upon retirement was the lack of stress. You don’t realize the stress you take on when you’re dealing with all the administrative duties of a parish until you don’t have to do it anymore.
“I got here to Reynoldsburg and wondered, ‘What do I do now?’ Msgr. Dave Funk (former St. Pius X pastor) and Father Dave Young (his successor) welcomed me warmly because St. Pius, as a large parish with one priest, needed a weekend assistant,” he said.
“I already knew some Columbus priests. Father Jerry Stluka was vocations director here when I had the same position in Steubenville. I knew Father Steve Metzger when he was pastor in Zaleski, which is near Athens; the same with Msgr. Bill Dunn, who used to be at Logan St. John. They introduced me to other priests, and that helped me settle in.
“Columbus has so many great resources in the Josephinum and ODU (Ohio Dominican University). I attend lectures at both and have a card for the Josephinum library. There are also all the great Metro Parks. I go to one of them every day, usually Blacklick Woods, which is nearby, and walk three or four miles.
“I also go back to Steubenville, which also is my hometown, several times a year for things like the Chrism Mass, ordinations and the dinner the bishop has for retired priests usually once or twice a year.”
Father Lumpe, who had been vice rector of the College of Liberal Arts at the Josephinum, was appointed last year to the new position of vicar for senior and infirm priests. He is continuing in that position under Bishop Fernandes and lives at the Mother Angeline McCrory Manor skilled nursing facility, where he is chaplain.
“Notice that I am not the vicar for ‘retired priests,’ I am the vicar for ‘senior and infirm priests,’’’ he said. “I believe there is a misconception or misunderstanding when the word ‘retired’ is applied to the priesthood.
“A Catholic priest never retires from being a priest – a priest may retire from his assigned office as pastor of a parish, or from assigned duties at a seminary or in the Tribunal – but a priest never retires from his vocation as a priest. One does not retire from Holy Orders.
“The scope of their ministerial duties may change, their living arrangements may change, but through the sacrament of Holy Orders they remain priests – senior priests.”
Father Lumpe notes that at some point in a senior priest’s life he might no longer be able to celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments or drive a car, or his needs might be so great that he can no longer live on his own or in a rectory.
“Beginning with Bishop Griffin and carried on with his successors, the diocese is committed to seeing to the needs of her retired priests with assisted living at the Villas at St. Therese, and skilled nursing at Mother Angeline McCrory Manor.
“With the support of the people of God through the Bishop’s Annual Appeal and through donations to The Catholic Foundation, the diocese is able to take care of her senior priests as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for their years of faithful and dedicated service.
“Because of their years of experience in parish and pastoral ministry, Catholic education, pastoral planning and finances, canon law, outreach programs and all things Church, our senior priests also provide a wealth of information and sage advice and counsel to the priests of the diocese.
“Why would anyone want to reinvent the wheel, or waste valuable time and precious resources, knowing that we have an army of seasoned senior priests who have ‘been there, done that’ and who are more than happy to share their vast array of knowledge and experience?
“I learned a long time ago not to be afraid to ask questions and to seek advice and counsel from those who walked in the shoes that I had been asked to wear,” Father Lumpe said. “One should never walk the road unaccompanied by those who have walked the road before, no matter what that road may be.
“When I look at the great number of active senior priests in our diocese, some of whom have health and other issues that they don’t let get in the way because of their desire to serve Jesus Christ, His Church and His people, these priests take to heart the words from the Rite of Ordination of Priests: ‘Carry out the ministry of Christ the Priest with constant joy and genuine love, attending not to your own concerns but to those of Jesus Christ.’”
