Father Joe

In a recent issue of Catholic Vote’sThe Loop, the on-line publication, there was a short feature on a priest who had been murdered in the diocese of Kansas City, Kansas, the other KC as we used to call it when we lived in St. Louis. Its current prelate is Archbishop Joseph Naumann.

I first met Father Joe when he was serving in his hometown of St. Louis in 1984. He was the priest, chosen to serve as the coordinator for the pro-life committee for the St. Louis archdiocese that year. Our eventual meeting and friendship began after a chain of events, which started at a Sunday social after the 11 o’clock Mass at the Annunziata parish. I was waiting in the donut line when I spied a strange little pin on the lapel of Mike Suden, a fellow member of our Men’s Bible Study. The pin depicted fetal feet, in 10-weeks’ gestation. When he told me exactly what it was, I felt a tap on my shoulder or maybe a tug on the strings of my heart. 

In other words, I was chosen to follow where Mike’s footsteps led me. Consequently, he invited me to join his Pro-life Convention Committee, which had gotten former abortionist, Bernard Nathanson, as its guest speaker. 

This convention fell under the umbrella of Father Naumann’s purview. For me, the convention was the start of something a lot bigger than myself. The basement donut line marked the beginning of a long relationship with the Pro-life Movement. And with it for a good many years, we got to be part of a growing family of volunteers who to me and my late wife were likened to an auxiliary family, with Father Naumann as our patriarch.

I fondly remember those days of conventions, socials, masses, talks and marches with relish and a smile on my face. My wife, Judy always told me that the people in Father Joe’s apostolate were her favorites among all the people we had met in our days in St. Louis. She once told me that marching with 250,000 fellow prolife advocates in Washington D. C. on the 35th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 2008 had been one of the highlights of her life as a Catholic. 

Father Joe, as we all called him, was a large part of this. Circa 2006, I had been asked to serve on his four-member executive board as the Treasurer. It was more of a nominal post without portfolio since I never got to manage any real money. I remember attending several meetings with different local parish prolife groups with him during one summer.

For each stop on his list, Father Joe essentially gave the same speech each time. He employed a specific phrase that has stayed with me ever since. Though I forgot its actual context, Father Joe told what history knows as the Parable of the Chinese Farmer. The farmer in the parable owned a horse. His neighbors said he was very fortunate to have such a strong and beautiful animal. His inscrutable answer was: Maybe Yes, maybe no.

As the story continued, one day the horse ran away and his neighbors lamented that it was a terrible loss. The farmer answered, Maybe Yes, maybe no. Days later the farmer’s horse returned with a herd of seven other horses. Again, the neighbors commented on his good fortune. And the farmer answered…you guessed it…Maybe Yes, maybe no. 

This continued with additional benefits and losses, with the same exact answer, each and every time. I guess the simple message is how we should face the good and bad that falls on every human’s doorstep, the inevitable joys and pains of human existence. For years I mercilessly teased him about that summer and the Chinese philosopher.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention Father Joe’s physical size. He was a very big man, weighing in at roughly 230-pounds and standing around 6’4”. Father Joe was surrounded by tall people, especially our Deacon, the late Ed Macauley, who stood at 6’8”. He was better known as Easy Ed, when he was an All-American basketball player at St. Louis University and a star player in the NBA for the Boston Celtics and the St. Louis Hawks. When teamed with another tall committee member, whose name escapes me, I had always thought we had an imposing front court for a pro-life basketball team.

There have been studies that have concluded that exceptional height often goes hand-in-hand with leadership. Father Joe was a perfect example. I have always thought he reminded me of George Washington, who at 6’3” was our second tallest president, an inch shorter than Abraham Lincoln. 

Father Joe also had something else in common with two other United States Presidents, namely Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. All three men were  posthumous babies. In other words, their fathers had died before their births. Father Joe’s father died before his second son’s birthday on June 4, 1949. Fred Naumann had played a little professional baseball and was a World War II vet. He was anticipating the birth of his second child a week before Christmas in 1948, when he was viciously murdered by a disgruntled ex-employee, who slashed his throat. 

Fred left a widow and two sons, one a toddler and the other in utero. As Father Joe was later quoted as saying, It was a tragedy that affected the trajectory of our family life for decades. Fortunately, God left Father Joe in the hands of a saintly woman, his mother, Louise Naumann who shaped his beliefs on faith and forgiveness. Her gentle and faith-directed guidance made him the strong and faithful man he is today. 

Father Joe was ordained a priest on May 24, 1975, by Cardinal John Carberry. He was later appointed the Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis from 1997-2004. In 2004 he became the Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas. He was installed on January 15, 2005. He has also served on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-life for many years.

The late Saul Alinsky, the author of Rules for Radicals, a book that greatly influenced the political views of Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, had worked among many Chicago priests during his radical days. Based on his experience, Alinsky, who was an atheist, said he had known two types of priests, those who wanted to be bishops and those who wanted to be pastors. I have known both types of priests, and so I feel confident in saying, Father Joe never impressed me as someone who had an ambitious heart. His mother had brought him up to care about people, not titles.

Mrs. Naumann was no stranger to many of our prolife activities. We loved her as we loved her son. In fact, when Father Joe had just been appointed the Archbishop of the Kansas City, Kansas diocese, he bought her a train pass for Amtrak. Someone quipped that they could just picture her talking to the other passengers, saying something like: Did I tell you my son was a bishop? This is maternal pride speaking, not ambition.

Following her husband’s death, Mrs. Naumann went back to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Maryville College. She then became a schoolteacher and finished as a principal of a Catholic High School. Louise Naumann lived to be 97, having gone to her eternal reward on September 26, 2020.

Father Joe’s position as a leading prelate has not changed his love for the unborn one bit. While many bishops seem content in working for social justice, Father Joe is still on the frontlines of the prolife struggle. Well into his Kansas City position, when many of our church leaders think there are other priorities, Father Joe is still protecting the unborn and will to his dying day. 

You may have missed it, I know I did, but as many as 20,000 members of his Kansas City Diocese signed a petition in March of 2021, to have Father Joe removed from Kansas City because of his abject criticism of our devout Catholic President, Joe Biden and his stance on abortion. As the Archbishop put it, the president doesn’t believe what we believe about the sacredness of human life, or he wouldn’t be taking the actions that he is… The Archbishop is not to be jeered for his fidelity to God’s little ones but applauded. He also commended President Trump’s attempts to rid the nation of the vicious gangs who had roamed freely during the Biden administration.

He believes wholehearted in enforcing Canon 915 as directing priests to deny communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights and euthanasia. He counseled Catholic Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas to change her stance on abortion, When she refused, Father Joe denied her communion. How many other priests and prelates have done this?

According to The Loop, on April 8th of this year, Pope Francis accepted the Archbishop’s letter of resignation after more than 20 years of episcopal service in the archdiocese of Kansas City. Father Joe had reached the mandatory age of retirement last June. 

One of the last acts of his service was to address a series of satanic rituals and events in Kansas. Always true to his faith, Father Joe consecrated the state to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and called on the faithful to pray for the spiritual conversion of those taking part in the mockery of our Catholic faith and the beliefs of all Christians. He also filed a lawsuit against the venue which hosted a satanic black mass, citing religious discrimination and the desecration of sacred symbols.

I cannot believe it is over 20 years since we have last seen Father Joe. When he was busy packing up to go to his new post, Judy and I took him to lunch. In those days, I was driving a small sedan. I can still see his cramped figure in my passenger seat with his knees approaching his chin and this was without complaint. When we reached the Chancery after lunch, and it was time to part, I asked him if he would stay connected with us. His pointed answer was: Maybe Yes, maybe no. 

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Note: I am aware that my continued use of the informal ‘Father Joe’ for a consecrated Bishop of the Church might seem disrespectful to him and his position. I clearly remember just after he first became an auxiliary bishop, a woman on our committee, asking him directly ‘if we could all still call him ‘Father Joe’? While he was nodding a ‘Yes,’ one fellow quipped: But calling him ‘Joe,’ might be pushing it!