Father McCauley's gift connected the Rochester community

Jun. 16—ROCHESTER — Father James McCauley had a gift.

Some parish priests are good at teaching, and others at raising money and building schools, and still others at preaching and holding a congregation spellbound. McCauley's gift was less a skill than an inner quality: His humanity. He had an ability to listen and connect with people. He liked people, warts and all.

And it was from that heightened sense of empathy that Pax Christi Catholic Church was founded and built in the 1970s. Many people connect to a church through a priest, not a building. And that's how many found their way to Pax Christi.

"He was a man of compassion," said the Rev. Joe Fogal, a senior priest and one-time Pax Christi pastor. "He just really loved people."

McCauley died on June 5, 2022, after serving 66 years as a priest. He was 91.

McCauley had been assigned the task of building a new parish in growing Rochester. Before there was a church building called Pax Christi, McCauley would hold Mass on the weekends at a roller rink called Skate Country in Rochester. On weekdays, when the roller rink wasn't available, he would conduct services at people's homes.

The home services became so popular that even after Pax Christi was built in northwest Rochester in the mid-1970s, people didn't want to give them up, said Monsignor Gerald Mahon, pastor of Co-Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

"It was a genius way of creating family and units of people knowing each other," Mahon said.

He developed a sense of family within the parish, in part because his church was welcoming to parents, their children and the foibles, unruliness and attendant disruptions that they can bring to a church service.

Mark and Ann Oldenburg and their children became members of the church after moving to Rochester in 1979. Mark described the nature of McCauley's theology as a "comfortable one." He described the church as "very family-oriented."

The church's design reflected the values that he personified. The building was not "old school." The inside of the church was round and open with people on all sides. The music didn't emanate from the back but was "front and present." The barriers that traditionally separated the sanctuary from the assembly were removed.

"It was more inclusive," Mark Oldenburg said. "In terms of how he preached, it was very much the Second Vatican Council, kind of an outreach of love to our fellow man. He established that as the character of the parish and that has moved on through his life."

That skill at making people comfortable and accepting them on their own terms had a practical side to it. He knew how to talk to people and use his persuasiveness to get people to pledge more for, say, a new church.

"He was practical, but he was also a very human, compassionate guy," Oldenburg said. "He didn't make assumptions about people. And, at the same time, he was quite spiritual."

McCauley's empathy for others was illustrated in a story told by Mahon at McCauley's funeral service on Monday. It was a story about McCauley's dog, Shannon, and it produced the strongest emotional punch at the service.

McCauley was deeply attached to the dog, an Irish Setter, and took the dog everywhere. The dog would be with him all the time, in the office and on walks around the church grounds. He went hunting with the dog. The one exception was when McCauley was saying Mass in the sanctuary.

McCauley went on vacation and left the dog with a friend who owned a farm near Byron while he was away. When he returned from vacation, he went to the farm to pick up Shannon. On the driveway, McCauley met a little girl who asked him why he was there. McCauley said he was there to pick up his dog, Shannon.

The girl told him, "That's not your dog. That's my dog."

McCauley went back to his car, started crying and drove out of the driveway, Mahon told the congregation. The dog stayed with the girl.

McCauley taught at Cotter High School and served as principal at Cotter and Lourdes high schools. He was talented athletically. He was an outdoorsman. Pax Christi church was built amidst a cornfield, and McCauley could walk into the backyard of the church and go pheasant hunting with friends and other priests. He was a Golden Gloves champion in the Upper Midwest and excelled at golf.

"He could have been on the PGA Tour, I'm sure. He was that good," Fogal said.

Fogal recalled that McCauley was the first priest to welcome him after receiving his first pastoral assignment to St. Pius X Catholic Church in the late 1970s. Fogal was able to observe how McCauley worked as an administrator and parish leader.

"He worked collaboratively with people. He was not a dictator. And I know he taught me lessons on how to relate to people and to work as a team with people in his parish," Fogal said.

McCauley's spirituality was not an insular world cut off from the practical side of things. He contributed not just to the church but to the community. He was active in the Knights of Columbus, Rochester Exchange Club and Human Rights Commission.

Mahon said many people view faith and humanity as in tension. They believe that "if you're going to be" in a Christian, church-centered world, "you're not going to be fully human." McCauley showed through his life that not only can faith and humanity co-exist, but "the more we surrender to Christ, the more human we can become," Mahon said.

"When you have someone who is such a believer and yet was so fully human, this is a characteristic he had and that he desired for other people," Mahon said.