{"id":4675,"date":"2010-07-22T09:15:40","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T09:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/pittsburgh-mourns-death-of-a-living-saint.html"},"modified":"2010-07-22T09:15:40","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T09:15:40","slug":"pittsburgh-mourns-death-of-a-living-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/pittsburgh-mourns-death-of-a-living-saint.html","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh mourns death of a “living saint”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sad news, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: <\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe Rev. Patrick Rager, 50, a Catholic priest widely regarded as a living saint for ministering to others as a fatal disease slowly paralyzed him, died Tuesday at home in West Homestead.<\/p>\n

“He really is a yet-to-be-canonized saint,” said Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh, who has archived papers for a potential cause for his sainthood.<\/p>\n

“Every time I visited him, I came away knowing that I had been in the presence of God.”<\/p>\n

Father Rager’s seminary rector and former bishop, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., described him with a term that the Vatican requires of candidates for sainthood.<\/p>\n

“He really was an example of heroic virtue,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He gave such a witness in his priestly ministry to what it means to take up one’s cross and simply, quietly bear it. But he did it in a way that converted it into a ministry. He was a constant source of support, encouragement and spiritual strength for people all over, not only the United States, but different parts of the world.”<\/p>\n

He was inspired to priesthood by his childhood pastor at St. Mary Magdalene in Homestead and by an uncle who was a priest in the Harrisburg diocese. At Central Catholic High School, he excelled at athletics and academics. He is in the Alumni Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

“His picture hangs there right next to Danny Marino,” said his mother, Helene Rager.<\/p>\n

He entered St. Paul Seminary, studying theology and psychology at Duquesne University.<\/p>\n

The earliest sign of illness was when his knee gave out during a softball game. He endured 15 years of misdiagnoses before he was found to have the same slow-killing form of ALS — Lou Gehrig’s Disease — as physicist Stephen Hawking.<\/p>\n

He was using a cane in 1981, when he began graduate studies at Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, N.Y. But he spent two summers as an Air Force chaplain, and bought a Pontiac Fiero to celebrate his 1985 ordination.<\/p>\n

St. Sylvester in Brentwood built handrails so “Father Paddy” could reach the altar and say Mass without falling. But he went home on sick leave in 1987.<\/p>\n

In 1988, one of Bishop Anthony Bevilacqua’s final acts here was to make Father Rager coordinator of a new office for ministry to people with physical disabilities. At that office and later from home, he took calls and answered mail from people in pain.<\/p>\n

In a letter to pastors he wrote, “No problem is too small to enlist my assistance. I am always available to listen, to counsel and give hope to those in need.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more at the link.<\/p>\n

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord…<\/em><\/p>\n


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Sad news, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Rev. Patrick Rager, 50, a Catholic priest widely regarded as a living saint for ministering to others as a fatal disease slowly paralyzed him, died Tuesday at home in West Homestead. “He really is a yet-to-be-canonized saint,” said Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh, who has archived papers for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nPittsburgh mourns death of a "living saint" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/pittsburgh-mourns-death-of-a-living-saint.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pittsburgh mourns death of a "living saint" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sad news, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Rev. 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