Msgr. Kurwicki remembers: ‘There is virtue in the center’
Monsignor Robert A. Kurwicki believes Bishop John R. Gaydos will go down in history as “the most quotable bishop of Jefferson City.”
“He was witty, urbane, well-read and very QUICK,” recalled Msgr. Kurwicki, administrator for the Jefferson City diocese.
“He was a natural-born storyteller,” the priest continued. “And if you ever wanted to learn ANYTHING about the history of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, warts and all, he could tell you.”
One of those famous quotes was: “In the middle stands virtue.”
“I believe that old Roman axiom sums up his approach to holding various factions together within the communion of the Church,” said Msgr. Kurwicki, who served as Bishop Gaydos’s priest secretary from 1998-2009.
“Let’s not forget, he led us through a sometimes-difficult, sometimes-tumultuous but always interesting and engaging time in history,” the priest stated.
“He avoided extremes and polarization and did a commendable job of keeping us united,” he said.
“Witness to history”
Msgr. Kurwicki was a seminarian at Cardinal Glennon College in St. Louis in 1979 when he first met then-Father Gaydos.
The future bishop was serving as the priest secretary and master of ceremonies to Cardinal John J. Carberry of St. Louis.
“He would send out a notice that the cardinal would be having a Mass and needed servers from any diocese to serve,” Msgr. Kurwicki recalled.
Some two decades hence, upon arriving in Jefferson City, Bishop Gaydos “inherited” Msgr. Kurwicki as Previous Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe’s master of ceremonies.
“A year later, I became his priest secretary and served for 11 years,” the monsignor recalled.
In that time in the office adjacent to Bishop Gaydos’s, Msgr. Kurwicki came to see himself an eyewitness to history.
“Not only for the things he accomplished and carried out in the diocese,” he said, “but also when he went outside the diocese for various things, and with the people who called him.”
Soul food
Bishop Gaydos possessed a wealth of knowledge about the city of Rome, where he spent four years as a seminarian before his priestly ordination in St. Peter’s Basilica on Vatican Hill.
“And if you were looking for a good meal, when he had the time, when he cooked at the Bishop’s Residence, it was the best restaurant in town!” said Msgr. Kurwicki. “Clergy, laypeople and various groups alike enjoyed many a simple but tasty meal around his dining room table.”
Seasoning came from the herb garden he planted in his back yard.
Some of the best meals were Italian fare.
“That came from the fact that whenever he came home from Rome, his parents would ask, ‘What do you eat over there?’” said Msgr. Kurwicki.
Simply describing the food didn’t get the message across, so the future bishop bought an Italian cookbook in Rome and used it to prepare authentic meals for his parents and family.
“He did this so much, that he became quite an Italian chef,” said Msgr. Kurwicki. “He was asked to prepare meals for dignitaries and for friends of the archbishop.”
Served up with every helping was an engaging bounty of stories.
He had met three popes — St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis — and would unravel intriguing, moving and sometimes-amusing yarns about each.
Upon making his first ad limina visit to the Vatican with Bishop McAuliffe to officially meet with Pope John Paul, he joking told the pontiff: “Now that I’m bishop, I only have to listen to three people, and they were all born in 1920: you, Bishop McAuliffe and my mother!”
He would tell of the time he filled up the glass of a future pope at a gathering of U.S. cardinals in Rome.
As Cardinal Carberry’s priest-secretary, Bishop Gaydos found himself among the priests who waited on the cardinals at table.
He recalled offering to pour Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who would soon become Pope John Paul II, an after-meal glass of sambuca, an Italian liqueur.
“Piccola, per favore,” he said, meaning, “Just a little, please.”
Knot so fast
Bishop Gaydos cherished the memory of the Mass he and priests from all over the United States got to concelebrate with Pope John Paul during his 1999 visit to St. Louis.
“Especially that his mother, Carrie Ann, was able to receive Holy Communion from the pope himself,” said Msgr. Kurwicki. “That meant very much to both of them.
The priest noted that Bishop Gaydos was at a bishops’ meeting in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001, the day terrorists flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington, and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
“He could see the Pentagon burning,” said Msgr. Kurwicki. “He couldn’t get a flight back home because all aircraft were grounded. He and a few bishops wound up renting one of the last available cars in the area and drove back to their home dioceses.”
Cardinal Carberry, a leading authority on the Church’s theology pertaining to the Blessed Mother, introduced Bishop Gaydos to seeking her intercession under the title, “Mary, Undoer of Knots.”
“As a young priest working in the Chancery, (Bishop Gaydos) was eager to get all the work done one day,” Msgr. Kurwicki shared.
Cardinal Carberry showed him an image of Mary, Undoer of Knots.
“He told him, ‘Sometimes, you have to be like Mary and gently shake the rope until the knots come loose,’” said Msgr. Kurwicki. “As if to say, ‘Maybe wait a few days before you answer that letter.’”
Decades later, Pope Francis would popularize devotion to Mary, Undoer of Knots throughout the Church.
“Nothing as forgotten”
As head of the St. Louis archdiocese at the time Bishop Gaydos was appointed bishop here, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Justin F. Rigali gave Bishop Gaydos the crosier (bishop’s staff) that had belonged to the late Archbishop John L. May, whom Bishop Gaydos had assisted diligently at the Chancery and in the Cathedral.
Archbishop Rigali also gave him a cross that had belonged to Cardinal Joseph E. Ritter, the St. Louis archbishop who had accepted him into priestly formation and sent him to study in Rome.
“He kept both of those throughout his time as bishop,” said Msgr. Kurwicki. “They reminded him of two courageous men who believed in him and served the Church very well.”
Often, when someone would ask Bishop Gaydos to pray for something, he’d say, “I’ll put that between the corporal and the paten” — meaning he would offer it as an intention during his daily Mass.
He administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to thousands of young people in the diocese. Each of them heard him apply to them in his homily what Jesus said to his disciples at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel: “You will be my witnesses to the end to the earth!”
Bishop Gaydos made a point of attending the Funeral Masses of the parents of priests of the diocese, often leading the Rite of Committal at the end.
“He had a great respect for priests and for the men and women who brought them into this world and raised them,” said Msgr. Kurwicki.
Bishop Gaydos restored the distribution of papal honors to clergy and laity of this diocese, a tradition that his successor, Archbishop Shawn McKnight, continued throughout his time here.
Bishop Gaydos often told fellow bishops that the Jefferson City diocese is “the best-kept secret in the bishop’s conference.”
Another of his oft-repeated quotes was: “There is nothing as forgotten as a dead priest except a dead bishop. So please pray for me!”
“Therefore,” said Msgr. Kurwicki, “in thanksgiving and charity, let us always remember him in our hearts and in our prayers.”
