PITTSBURGH – Father Patrick Rager, who as a newly ordained
priest of the Pittsburgh Diocese served just two years in a
parish assignment before a devastating illness forced him
into a wheelchair and eventual paralysis, died July 20 at age
50.
He died at home in West Homestead, where for the past 20
years he had conducted a phone ministry for people with
physical disabilities through the diocesan Department for
Persons With Disabilities, touching the lives of people
around the country.
His funeral Mass was celebrated July 24 at St. Therese of
Lisieux in Munhall.
Many who knew him regarded him as a saint, including
Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik.
“His eyes reflect the depth of Christ in his life and in his
soul,” the bishop said. “His story has so beautifully touched
all of our hearts.”
Diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s
disease – in his 20s, Father Rager served just one assignment
following his May 11, 1985, ordination in St. Paul Cathedral
by then-Bishop Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Pittsburgh. That was
at St. Sylvester Parish in Brentwood, before he was placed on
indefinite leave of absence for health reasons.
A gifted athlete, he had been experiencing mysterious
symptoms since age 21. His leg would go out without warning
and once while playing softball he went crashing to the
ground. By his seminary years he was using a cane. At St.
Sylvester, his condition became more dire and he soon was
confined to a wheelchair.
He went home, where his parents created an apartment for him
on the house’s lower level. His first year there, he said,
was a time of desolation as, feeling lost and anxious, he
questioned how he could continue his ministry as a priest.
When Grace Harding, who headed the diocesan Department for
Persons With Disabilities, went to meet him, “I was greeted
with his beautiful smile and joyful spirit,” she said. “We
talked about beginning a telephone ministry with people who
were also physically disabled and he loved the idea.”
Father Rager created a diocesan outreach in 1987 with a list
of 60 names that soon expanded into the hundreds. He also
began a newsletter and wrote columns for the Pittsburgh
Catholic, the diocesan newspaper.
In interviews, Father Rager said of his ministry: “I’ve
learned the most essential thing – you’ve got to be
accepting. It teaches you great faith in God.
“If you can’t accept your condition, you can’t move on,” he
said. “That’s my job, getting people with handicaps to accept
their disabilities then to get them to go on with their
lives.”
All the while, Harding said, “Father Pat suffered, but he
never ever complained about his situation. He always felt
that this was what God wanted from him and he accepted this.”
Father Walt Rydzon, who first met Father Rager when he became
pastor for the Catholic Deaf Community in 1994, said, “Most
of the time when a priest is talking to someone who is
carrying the pain of the cross, that priest is usually
healthy, and so there’s a part in that encounter in which the
person who is hurting thinks, ‘But Father, you really don’t
know.’ Pat knew the cross and the suffering souls who sought
his wisdom knew that also. That’s why they listened and
believed.”
Father Kris Stubna, who gave the homily for Father Rager’s
funeral Mass, recalled a classmate, friend and co-worker who
had a “passion for living, a great sense of humor.”
“I admired him tremendously for the choices he made,” Father
Stubna said. “I believe he saw his suffering and infirmity as
an integral part of his priestly ministry and an opportunity
for grace for himself and for others. He chose to accept that
his illness was part of God’s will.”
The Serra Club of Pittsburgh honored him with the Good
Shepherd Award in 2008. “In the midst of adversity that most
of us cannot comprehend, Father Rager has been an inspiration
to those he ministers to,” said John Pillar, club president.
Bishop Zubik once wrote that “Father Rager’s disease has
robbed him of almost every aspect of what we would associate
with a normal day in the life: walking, running, eating,
touching, speaking and, in Father Pat’s case, some might even
say ‘priesting.'”
Confined to bed, paralyzed from the neck down, “his only
means of communication his eyes and his smile,” Father Rager
is “at least a marvel and at best a ‘saint,'” the bishop
wrote.
