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By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, died in Manhasset,
N.Y., at a retreat house Nov. 12 of an apparent heart attack. He was 66.
The third archbishop of Atlanta, Archbishop Marino was the first
black archbishop in the United States, serving here from May 1988 until May
1990.
The archbishop was at St. Ignatius Retreat House in Manhasset for
a retreat, which ended the evening of Nov. 11 with Mass and the anointing of
the sick. In the course of the Mass, the archbishop himself was anointed by a
concelebrating priest. He retired for the night and the following day he was
discovered dead in bed by a housekeeper.
Archbishop Marino had been working for the past five years as
spiritual director in an outpatient program for clergy at St. Vincent’s
Hospital in Harrison, N.Y. The program works with clergy in the areas of
substance abuse and sexual behavior issues. He has been living at a Salesian
Fathers residence in New Rochelle, N.Y.
The archbishop found his work “very fulfilling,” said
Father Robert M. Kearns, superior general of the Josephites, the order to which
Archbishop Marino was ordained in June 1962.
At the Mass the night before he died “the priest anointed the
archbishop, then the archbishop anointed the priest,” said Father Kearns.
Before he went to bed, Archbishop Marino said he was going to leave early the
next morning to visit his brother in New Jersey, so no one was surprised when
he did not appear for breakfast, the Josephite leader said. He was discovered
dead in bed later that day.
Among several Masses to be celebrated for the archbishop, a
memorial Mass will take place Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Francis Xavier Church
in Baltimore, Md., the city where the Josephite order has its headquarters. The
Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Monday, Nov. 20, at 11 a.m. at the
Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Biloxi, Miss., the
community where Archbishop Marino was born and raised. There will be a wake
service Sunday, Nov. 19, at Our Mother of Sorrows Church in Biloxi, his home
parish, from 4-7 p.m. The archbishop will be buried in Biloxi Cemetery.
Archbishop John F. Donoghue, in a statement Nov. 13, said,
“With great sadness, we have learned this morning of the sudden death of
our brother in Christ, Archbishop Eugene A. Marino ... We extend to his family,
to his brother priests of the Josephite order, and to his friends in Washington
where he worked for many years, our deepest sympathy and consolation at their
loss.”
“Many in Atlanta, where he served for two years, will
continue to remember Archbishop Marino with sincere affection, for his gentle
nature and his caring heart. Let us now turn our own hearts and minds to
heaven, and pray for the soul of this dedicated servant of the Gospel and his
Lord, asking that eternal rest be granted to him, and to all the souls of the
faithfully departed, by the mercy of God.”
Archbishop Donoghue, who was attending the annual meeting of the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C. from Nov. 12-16,
will take part in the Mass in Baltimore. Father James Schillinger, president of
the Priests Council, will represent the priests of the archdiocese.
A memorial Mass will be scheduled in Atlanta when Archbishop
Donoghue returns.
The bishops of the United States opened their meeting Nov. 13 with
prayer for Archbishop Marino.
Msgr. Edward Dillon, who was vicar general while Archbishop Marino
served in Atlanta, spoke of his shock at hearing of the archbishop’s
death. They had spoken occasionally on the telephone in recent years, Msgr.
Dillon said. “It was obvious, in the conversations I had with him, that he
was happy doing what he was doing, doing some good. He was basically at
peace.”
The pallium Archbishop Marino received from Pope John Paul II
after his installation as archbishop of Atlanta, was sent to Biloxi, so that
the vestment, which signifies a bishop’s link with the pontiff, can be
buried with him, as is the custom, Msgr. Dillon said. It has been stored in the
Atlanta archives since Archbishop Marino resigned in 1990.
Born May 29, 1934, Archbishop Marino was the son of Jesus Maria
Marino, a native of Puerto Rico, and Lottie Bradford Marino of Biloxi, the
sixth child in a family of eight. His maternal grandfather helped to build Our
Mother of Sorrows Church and the parish was staffed by Josephite priests, who
serve the African-American community. Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the
order founded by St. Katharine Drexel, staffed the parish school.
Archbishop Marino went to elementary and high school at Our Mother
of Sorrows before entering the Josephite minor seminary in Newburgh, N.Y. It
was his first experience in a racially integrated community. He spent 1952-56
in the minor seminary and graduated from St. Joseph Seminary College after
studying there from 1956-62. He was ordained to the priesthood June 9, 1962.
Two of his seminary classmates came to his installation Mass in
Atlanta in 1988 and one, Father John Harfmann, is scheduled to give the homily
at the memorial Mass in Baltimore.
He taught religion, biology and physical science at Epiphany
College from 1962-68 and served as spiritual director of St. Joseph’s
Seminary in Washington from 1968-71. He was elected vicar general of the
Josephites in 1971, serving also as director of spiritual and educational
formation for the society.
In September 1974, when he was 40, Father Marino was named an
auxiliary bishop of Washington, becoming the third black priest in modern times
to achieve the rank of bishop in the U.S. Catholic Church.
Preceding him were Auxiliary Bishop Harold R. Perry of New
Orleans, who died in 1991, and Bishop Joseph L. Howze, then of Jackson, Miss.,
and now of Biloxi. There are currently 12 active and one retired black U.S.
bishops.
Bishop Marino took an active role in the bishops’ conference
and in educating the predominantly white U.S. Catholic Church about the evils
of racism and the contributions that black Catholics could make.
Bishop Marino played a key role in the pope’s visit with
black Catholic leaders in New Orleans in 1987 and was one of the authors of the
black bishops’ 1984 pastoral on evangelization.
In 1985, Bishop Marino was elected secretary of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops and U.S. Catholic Conference, becoming the first
black to hold a major NCCB-USCC post.
“I see it as a sign of hope and encouragement and an
indication of a serious commitment (on the part of the bishops) to making black
people leaders of the church at the highest levels,” he said of his
election.
In a 1987 talk to black Catholic leaders from around the United
States, he said, “Growing up as a young boy in Mississippi, with the
double — I was going to say handicap, but I’ll say blessing — of
being black and Catholic, I never thought I would see the day when I would be
standing here preaching God’s holy word in this place, as a priest, indeed
as a bishop of the church. Generations of black Catholics never lived to see a
black priest or sister, let alone ever dream that their son or daughter might
become one.”
Archbishop Marino was the ranking African-American member of the
Catholic hierarchy when he stepped aside as archbishop of Atlanta in May 1990,
stating that he was suffering from exhaustion and stress. He submitted his
resignation to the pope in July 1990 and Bishop James P. Lyke, OFM, was
appointed as apostolic administrator and later as the next archbishop of
Atlanta. In August the public learned that Archbishop Marino had acknowledged
having had an inappropriate relationship with Vicki Long, a single mother who
had previously made a court claim against another priest.
After his resignation, Archbishop Marino went into seclusion,
under spiritual direction and psychiatric and medical care for severe stress.
In a 1996 interview with Catholic News Service, he said he had
been a chaplain for the Sisters of Mercy in Alma, Mich., prior to joining St.
Vincent’s in July 1995.
In his work in the outpatient program, Archbishop Marino said in
the interview, he did not draw on his personal experience in any major way when
he worked with priests who were patients there.
“It’s not about me,” he said. “It has to be
about them and how God’s grace is working in the process of their
lives.”
Father Kearns said Archbishop Marino also had been leading two
retreats for priests each year. Although he had “many, many requests from
bishops” to conduct other retreats, he limited the number to two so as not
to interfere with his work, the priest added.
Gerard O’Connor, who served as the archbishop’s master
of ceremonies for the two years he was in Atlanta, said that he was privileged
to reestablish their friendship in recent years as they both were “working
with priests helping them to get recovery through 12-Step programs and other
therapies.” The archbishop was to speak at Guest House, the program for
which O’Connor now works, in the spring of 2001.
Archbishop Marino’s spiritual direction of the program at St.
Vincent’s was filling a great need in the church, O’Connor said.
“He came with such woundedness and out of that came such healing,”
O’Connor said. “He was able to give that to guys who came to
him.”
“He was always a priest,” he added. “He never
stopped his ministry as a priest. I think it was far stronger. He had nothing
to hide anymore.”
Last September O’Connor and his wife, Shay, went to a Mass
celebrated by Cardinal John O’Connor of New York for the archbishop’s
25th anniversary of ordination as a bishop. The Mass for the archbishop, his
family and a few of his co-workers was celebrated in Our Lady’s Chapel at
St. Patrick’s Cathedral and was followed by a dinner hosted by the
cardinal at his residence.
The cardinal, who was the homilist, “addressed what had
happened in Atlanta in a spiritual and pastoral way,” O’Connor said.
“He talked about how we could fill our lives with everything that is not
God, but the only thing that really fills our lives is God ... He said it was
such a grace from God for (Archbishop Marino) because it had brought him closer
to God.”
The cardinal also said that he was honored to have the archbishop
ministering in New York. Archbishop Marino was “so humbled by the
cardinal’s words,” O’Connor said. “The healing that
happened in that chapel that night was tangible.”
Although saddened at the sudden death of the archbishop,
O’Connor said he had “real joy in my heart to know that this was what
Gene lived his life for—to be called by God into his presence.”
Father John Adamski, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Church,
Atlanta, said, “I am thinking of my thankfulness for his compassion.”
While archbishop of Atlanta “he came to bless the night
shelter at the Shrine (of the Immaculate Conception),” where Father
Adamski was pastor at the time. “We had a weekly dinner for people with
AIDS, he came and did those things. He blessed the crypt in the basement of the
Shrine. I remember his pastoral sense with all of these people and his
compassion ... He was always very good to me.”
Father Schillinger said that as a relatively new priest, he went
to Archbishop Marino in a time of personal struggle and received personal
warmth and wise advice. They went for a walk, he said, and some tears were shed
en route.
“He was human. He was honest. He was without guile,”
Father Schillinger said. “He was for me a father, a pastor and a
bishop.”
He had corresponded with the archbishop in recent years and said
the archbishop “felt very fulfilled in the ministry he was involved in in
New York.”
“He was a very gentle spirit,” Father Schillinger said.
“His own suffering dictated the kind of ministry he was capable of. He
ministered to people who were suffering and that is a gift any way you look at
it.”
The archbishop initiated the process of bringing a full-time
campus minister and establishing a permanent Catholic Center at the Atlanta
University Center, according to Father Edward Branch, the chaplain.
“He said to me that he really wished I would do it, but not
for him, but because it was so necessary,” said Father Branch. The two had
known each other while Father Branch was campus minister at Catholic University
of America and the archbishop was auxiliary bishop in Washington, D.C.
“To say that (his death) is a great loss is an
understatement,” Father Branch said. “Even the memory of his active
episcopacy is powerful. Even the news of his death is as if he is active and
present.”
Msgr. Henry Gracz, vicar for clergy, said that he remembers the
“absolute beaming inner light he had whenever he talked to you and at the
installation ceremony at the Civic Center how the place was made into a sacred
space by the faith excitement of the people who were waiting to greet their new
archbishop.”
“The other thing was how he dearly loved the song, ‘His
eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me,’” Msgr. Gracz said.
“That would be an absolutely fitting epitaph for his gravestone.”
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