Ministry through relationships mark Father Luerman’s 70 years as a priest

Retired Father John Luerman, right, speaks on May 3 with Tony and Donna Talbert during a celebration of the 70th anniversary of Father Luerman’s priestly ordination. The celebration took place at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Richmond. The faith community’s administrator, Father Sengole Gnanaraj, is at left. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

RICHMOND—If you ever go out for a meal with Father John Luerman, budget extra time for it—a lot of time.

“He remembers everybody and he talks, talks, talks, talks, talks,” said Father James Wilmoth, a friend of Father Luerman for nearly 60 years. “I laugh when he says, ‘I want to talk to this guy.’ A half hour later, he’d be done.”

Dan Sweet is a member of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Cambridge City, where Father Luerman served as pastor from 1980 until he retired in 2001. They’ve remained close ever since. He knows from experience what it means to go out with Father Luerman.

“You don’t want to go anywhere if you’re in a hurry because he will talk to everybody,” Sweet said.

That’s not simply a personality habit of a priest who’s described as “warm,” “genuine,” “a good guy” and “friendly and supportive.”

It’s at the heart of his 70 years of priestly ministry that he has lived in parishes across central and southern Indiana. Members of many of those faith communities gathered on May 3 to celebrate Father Luerman’s milestone anniversary during a Mass at St. Andrew Church on a campus of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Richmond, his hometown and where he now lives in retirement.

For him, the people he served wherever he was assigned “were my people, my brothers and sisters.”

And that care extended far beyond the Catholics who were members of the parishes in which he ministered.

“I not only knew the people who belonged to [my parish], but also the other people around,” said Father Luerman, 96, in an interview with The Criterion. “If you’re only a priest for your parish, you’re not doing your job. I knew them and they knew me.”

Rich in faith, loving the priesthood

Born in 1930 in Richmond to parents who were German immigrants, Father Luerman grew up poor in material things but rich in the things that matter the most.

“My parents were strong in their faith,” he said. “We didn’t have a car and so walked about a mile to go to church. They were poor when they came from Germany and raised six kids. We didn’t worry about money because we didn’t have any money.”

The faith of his parents contributed to a desire for the priesthood while he was a child. So did the ministry of Father Ambrose Schneider, who was assigned to what was then St. Andrew Parish in Richmond.

“He was a young priest who was always involved with the school,” recalled Father Luerman. “He was there for all of our activities. He was the kind of guy that you wanted to be, a kind gentleman.”

Although Father Schneider was “the kind of guy” that Father Luerman actually came to be as a priest in his kindness and availability to the people he served, there was a point in his time at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad when he wasn’t sure about his vocation.

Father Luerman talked it over with his father one summer.

“He said that it was my decision,” he remembered his dad telling him. “He said that he didn’t care what I did, that my mom and him prayed for me and that if I didn’t love it, I should do something else.”

He learned to love it by spending time in the evenings in the summer at St. Andrew doing youth ministry with another young priest assigned there at the time, Father Anthony Spicuzza.

“He was dedicated to the people,” Father Luerman recalled. “He was just a simple, ordinary guy who loved being a priest.”

Again, much like the priest he would later become.

But before spent he evenings at the parish, Father Luerman put in a hard day’s work at manual labor jobs, including one where he had to haul railroad ties up a hill all day long.

“You learned how to deal with people and what real life is all about,” said Father Luerman, who put those life lessons to use later in his priestly life and ministry.

That life began on May 3, 1956, when Archbishop Paul C. Schulte ordained him during a Mass at the Archabbey Church of Our Lady of Einsiedeln in St. Meinrad.

“I’d been anticipating it for 12 years,” the priest recalled. “It was an exciting day. My mom and dad were there. It was only the second time that they had been to Saint Meinrad in all my 12 years in seminary.”

‘You’ve got to be available’

Father Luerman’s experience during the summer while in seminary of long days at work and parish ministry in the evening prepared him for his first assignment as an assistant pastor at the former St. Catherine of Siena Parish and as an instructor and counselor at the former Sacred Heart High School, both in Indianapolis.

“You started at 6:30 in the morning and you quit at 11:00 at night,” he said. “You might get a week’s vacation if you were lucky. But I was used to long hours. It was just part of my life.”

Making connections with people as a priest started on his first day of ministry at St. Catherine, but in the most tragic of circumstances.

Father Luerman was called to a home where a husband and father had taken his own life. Now 70 years later, the moment still stands out in the priest’s mind.

“I can still remember the man’s name, his wife and two kids,” he said. “But that’s what your work was. If you’re going to be a good priest, you’ve got to be available. Period.”

Three years later, in 1959, Father Luerman began ministry as an assistant pastor at St. Monica Parish and an instructor at Cathedral High School, both in Indianapolis.

St. Monica had been founded just three years earlier and, according to Father Luerman, “was still out in the country,” but with new housing developments appearing all the time in the midst of the baby boom.

“You worked hard,” he recalled. “Everyone in the parish was new. You had to get to know everybody. It grew so quickly, you couldn’t imagine it.”

Father Luerman spent nine years at St. Monica before serving for a year at Holy Family Parish in New Albany and at Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville. In 1969, he became a pastor for the first time, leading the faithful at St. Michael Parish in Charlestown.

In the 45 years of ministry that Father Luerman carried out before retiring in 2001, he was assigned to faith communities in locations from large cities to small towns. The people he served have likewise been a mixture of those with a large income and those who were poor. None of that mattered to Father Luerman.

“I was happy every place where I was at,” he said. “I loved them all. And I’ve never been impressed with money. It doesn’t make you happy.”

Father Luerman’s happiness in serving the faithful continued for some 20 years after he retired, giving sacramental assistance in parishes across central and southern Indiana until he was 90.

Father Sengole Gnanaraj, the administrator of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Richmond, recalled how Father Luerman filled in for him for four months in 2019, daily caring for all the sacramental needs of a faith community with more than 900 households.

“That was so encouraging and so edifying—even challenging,” Father Gnanaraj said. “He was an active parish priest of a big parish for four months—at 89.”

Even as health concerns led him to move in recent years to the Friends Fellowship retirement facility in Richmond, Father Luerman insists that his life there is still defined by the kind of personal relationship ministry that marked his decades of service in parishes.

He said that he serves others at Friends Fellowship “just by being happy.”

“Many people here are not happy to be here,” Father Luerman reflected. “They’ve had to sell their homes or are away from their homes or their kids. In my short time here, I’ve gotten to know everybody. It’s just a continuation of my life as a priest.”

‘He lifts you up to be with Christ’

The close connections that Father Luerman formed wherever he lived and ministered weren’t restricted to a few favored people and families.

“He was always around our family. He was part of the family,” Sweet said. “But he was like that with everybody. There are 1,000 other people who could say the same thing about him. He’s that kind of person, so warm and genuine.”

Sweet also noted how his former pastor brought his priestly ministry to the relationships he built up with people.

“He was there first off to listen,” Sweet said. “Then he would provide counseling—even if you didn’t know that you needed counseling. At the end of the conversation, you’d feel better.

“There’s no doubt that you knew he was a priest, always. He always found a way to connect you to God in whatever you were doing, helping you realize that you’re not alone.”

Father Gnararaj sees the value in the senior priest’s personal approach to priestly life and ministry.

“Evangelization begins with simple friendships,” Father Gnanaraj said. “It begins with the simple trust that he would build with people. It begins with the sharing of space and time. He’s number one on that. It’s so natural for him.”

Father Wilmoth said that his friend shows the same care to him as a brother priest that he’s given to his parishioners over the years.

“He’s supported me in so many ways,” Father Wilmoth said. “He’s such a good guy, friendly and supportive. He always wanted to know what I was doing and how it was going. He was very selfless.”

Sweet sees an image of Christ in Father Luerman’s connection of personal relationships with priestly ministry.

“He lives Christ, follows Christ and brings you along with Christ,” Sweet said. “He lifts you up to be with Christ.”

For his part, Father Luerman has loved his 70 years of life and ministry as a priest and hopes that other men will join him in the vocation.

“Every day, I’ve always prayed, ‘Make me a good, healthy, holy and happy priest,’ ” Father Luerman said. “I’ve enjoyed my years as a priest. Whatever I did, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed helping people.

“It’s been a great life. I would recommend it. I hope young people would consider the priesthood and religious life. We need more young men.”
 

(For more information on a vocation to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, go to HearGodsCall.com.) †