'North Country' Catholics Warmed Bishop's Heart

Herald Staff Report
(From the Issue of April 10, 2003)

The weather in Ogdensburg, N.Y., may be cold, but the hearts of the people are always warm. Bishop Paul S. Loverde used that refrain repeatedly to describe the North Country Catholics in the diocese that he shepherded from 1994-99.

The weather reference is no exaggeration. Ogdensburg is located on the St. Lawrence River near the Canadian border. His installation there on Jan. 17, 1994, was held in the midst of a driving snowstorm. His farewell Mass on March 7, 1999, was preceded by eight inches of snow. Unfortunately, Arlington’s weather this winter has made the bishop homesick for the "balmy" climes of Ogdensburg.

"It is not easy to leave the Diocese of Ogdensburg," Bishop Loverde said on the day of his appointment to Arlington on Jan. 25, 1999. "For five years, I have experienced the deep faith and loving collaboration of the priests, deacons, religious and laity who form that particular church in the North Country of New York State. Ogdensburg has become my home.

"Although I must leave this portion of God’s people, I assure each of them of a place in my daily prayer and in my heart."

Msgr. James W. McMurtrie, former diocesan administrator and now pastor of St. Agnes Parish in Arlington, was among the many priests who concelebrated the farewell Mass in Ogdensburg. Bishop Loverde received numerous gifts at the reception, including two Remington statues from the Knights of Columbus. Artist Frederic Remington, best-known for his depictions of 19^th century frontier America, was born in Canton, N.Y., just 18 miles from Ogdensburg. Mayor Richard G. Lockwood, a parishioner at St. Mary’s Cathedral, presented the bishop with keys to the city.

Father Timothy J. Soucy, pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Saranac Lake, told the bishop he was sending every priest in the Arlington Diocese a pair of ballet slippers, "because those boys will be dancing," when their new bishop arrives.

Bishop Loverde’s "pride and joy" in Ogdensburg was Wadham’s Hall, the seminary named after the diocese’s founding bishop. It served as a college seminary for Ogdensburg and neighboring dioceses in New York and Canada until its closing last year. The bishop used to visit the seminary at least once a month.

In his final homily, the bishop reflected on the theme which started his ministry in Ogdensburg — evangelization.

"I am ending my service among you just as I began it: calling God’s people in the North Country to become evangelized as well as to evangelize," he said.

"We have been evangelizing as a diocesan church in so many ways: defending and protecting human life from its beginning at conception to its end at natural death; relearning how live morally, implementing social justice; rediscovering and refashioning family life, working toward Christian unity, strengthening Catholic education through our parochial schools and programs of Christian formation, encouraging vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life, assisting our poorer and needy sisters and brothers and beginning a process of pastoral planning.

"Beyond these ways," he said, "evangelization has been happening in the North Country as we pray and witness each day, proclaiming more by actions than by words, Jesus Christ is Lord.

"If I could leave you with one final message, it is this: be evangelizers in fact as well as in name. Be authentic disciples in mission, telling everyone who Jesus is and leading everyone to Him, the One Savior of the world."

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