Priest, educator 'Father Lew' Gaetano to retire July 1

CANTON – Maybe it's the booming laugh.

When you're a kid, a tall man who's happy to see you is like a human Jungle Gym.

When Monsignor Lewis F. Gaetano walks into a classroom at Our Lady of Peace School, children flock to him as though he was Justin Bieber.

More: https://www.cantonrep.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2019/08/24/it-s-mission-school/4386238007/

On July 1, the popular pastor at Christ the Servant Catholic Church and principal of Our Lady of Peace School will retire from active priesthood.

He celebrated the 49th anniversary of his ordination on May 15.

"I was ready to retire," said Gaetano, who turns 76 on Sept. 18. "I feel like it's time to let go. I've been here 12 years, plus two at St. Paul's."

An educator at heart, Gaetano has served at Christ the Servant, a merger of Our Lady of Peace and the former St. Paul parish, and has taught at the high school and college levels, and also started the master's in theology program at Walsh University.

He also has held several leadership and administrative positions within the diocese, including president of the Stark County Deanery.

'Birth of a dream'

Recently retired Walsh professors Jean DeFazio and Betty Marko are two Gaetano friends who have collaborated with him since 2008 to create educational programs such as the Walsh Servant Teaching Teaching Corps, a lab at OLOP for graduate students in education, and a Hispanic outreach that sends instructors to immigrants' places of work to tutor them.

Walsh recently renamed its Teaching Corps endowment the Monsignor Lewis F. Gaetano

More: Walsh set to make an 'Impact' at OLOP

"I met him when he first came to Walsh," said DeFazio, former chair of Walsh's Department of Education. "In 2008, he asked if he could come to one of our education meetings. He just had these ideas. His ideas have never, ever stopped."

Marko, a former associate professor of education and a liaison and coordinator of for Walsh's teaching department, calls Gaetano a "servant leader" and "pied piper."

"He's just a magnet; people just follow him," she said, adding that the St. Paul Hispanic Outreach and Servant Teacher Corps enabled her students to get good field experience. "His mantra, 'Birth of a dream,' is what St. Paul became."

Marko noted that Gaetano came up with the name "Christ the Servant" when Our Lady of Peace and St. Paul's in Canton merged in 2011.

"He truly is a servant," DeFazio said. "He does not stop giving. He's accepting of everyone."

The eldest of three brothers, Gaetano's late father, Anthony, owned a commercial construction company. His mother Gloria was a homemaker. The family lived on Frazer Avenue NW, just blocks from the church.

Middle brother Dan lives in Henderson, Nevada. Youngest brother John, born on Gaetano's birthday when was 18, is a vice president at Beaver Constructors and lives in Uniontown.

"One of the biggest projects he did was he and Paul David built all the Camelot Music stores all over the country," he said.

Though his father hoped he would become an architect, Gaetano said with a laugh that helping his dad on construction projects convinced him to head in another direction.

Baptized at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, Gaetano said he first became interested in the priesthood as a third-grader after transferring from the nearby Frazer School to the then-new OLOP, and had to sit next to the desk of the priest teaching religion whenever he misbehaved.

"I remember looking up at him and thinking I want to be a priest like him. I always remembered that," he said. "But I was signed up for pre-med at John Carroll (University) in high school."

His parents, he said, didn't push one way or the other.

"I think my parents looked on cautiously. But especially on my dad's side, which was Italian, and me being the oldest, there was a question of where grandchildren were coming from," he said with a laugh. "I think they all wondered until my ordination. I think they were proud, but they worried who was going to take care of me when I got older."

'You can go to Central, or you can go to Central'

Complicating matters was a girlfriend who attended Glenwood High School.

"I wasn't allowed to take her to the dances at Central," Gaetano said. "I asked my dad if I could transfer to Glenwood and he said, 'You have two choices. You can go to Central, or you can go to Central.' I asked her if she was willing to wait a year if I went to seminary."

After graduating high school, Gaetano entered the pre-med program at John Carroll University outside Cleveland.

"I remember talking to my spiritual director and he said, 'Either way, whether you go into medicine or you become priest, you're going to be a wounded healer," he said. "If you're going to be compassionate as a doctor or priest, you have to recognize the woundedness in others and in yourself."

He enrolled in Mount St. Mary Seminary in Cincinnati. After graduating, he took a one-year sabbatical, then became a teacher in 1968 at Steubenville Central Catholic High School, a mission diocese at the time.

"I wasn't sure what I wanted to do," he said. "I also thought about being a missionary. I talked to the Maryknoll fathers, and the Jesuits."

Following Gaetano's ordination by Bishop John King Mussio in 1973, he was sent to teach at a high school seminary in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Following was overseeing a lay ministry and the diaconate program at Bethany College in Wheeling.

In 1987, he was assigned to Mingo Junction, where he consolidated four small parishes into St. Agnes, a single church.

After his mother suffered a severe stroke in 1995, Gaetano reached out to Walsh President Ken Hamilton to secure an adjunct teaching position. His mother died in 1999.

After completing his doctorate in 2003 from St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, Gaetano was tapped to create Walsh's graduate theology program. In 2005, he became the department' s chair and campus chaplain.

Gaetano said he was planning to retire in 2010, but took on the pulpit at Christ the Servant at the request of the late Bishop George Murry, whom he names as one of his role models in the priesthood. Others include the late Bishop Joseph Hodges in Wheeling and the late Rev. Conrad Gromada.

"I absolutely loved Bishop Murry," he said. "He asked me to take it on an interim basis, and I told him I'd take it if it was on a permanent basis. This is where I grew up. Being able to come back here was wonderful. My proudest role is being an educator and working with others who serve."

Today, the parish has 850 families. Gaetano said he has always embraced the Second Vatican Council's emphasis on "full participation" in the liturgy.

"Liturgically, we're pretty progressive here," he said. "We have an organ, but it only gets played on Good Fridays. I was always kind of outside the box."

OLOP has 211 students, and 65% are Black, 20% are Latino, and 20% are white. Only 30% are Catholic.

"In school, the first thing you build is relationships," he said. "Our mission is to evangelize, not indoctrinate. I've been told we have one of the most diverse teaching staffs in the city. I grew up in a bubble. I never knew anything below 30th Street."

A shepherd's heart

Gaetano said diversity is reflective of God's kingdom.

"I just want our kids to recognize that they are God's beloved, and that each one of them is cherished by God ... I want (the students) to see this world as a good world, that God is right here with us; that God never abandons any one of God's children. I want kids to know they have a place to come back to."

OLOP teacher Dilafruz Samadova said Gaetano has been supportive and encouraging.

More: https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2019/12/13/she-escaped-arranged-marriage

"Father Lew is a personable person and the person I can rely on," she said. "He always supports my ideas and projects as a teacher and always looks for ways to help or improve the lives of our students. The mission of OLOP resonates with my goals, and here at OLOP, thanks to Father Lew, I found that teaching in the mission school is my vocation, and I love every moment of it."

On May 22, Bishop David Bonnar, head of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, delivered the homily at a special Mass at Christ the Servant.

"Monsignor Gaetano has devoted his life to the priesthood by pastoring with a shepherd's heart, and teaching just as Jesus did," Bonnar said. "He has done so much here for his flock at Christ the Servant."

Bonnar said that prior to the Mass, a proud Gaetano took him on a tour of OLOP.

"He really is so alive and so young, even as he faces retirement," he said. "Any time there is someone so dynamic, so committed and so much a part of our family and there's a departure, we can't help but feel uneasy and unsettled. But Jesus speaks to our heart."

Longtime friend and parishioner Dan Toussant said Gaetano has devoted his life to serving God and people.

"One other thing that comes to mind, he helps people celebrate the lives of their loved ones," he said. "So, funerals, always a touching and inspirational experience; he loves to celebrate birthdays, young kids and older people too. And he does a nice job, as people like to say, when it comes to weddings, raising the bar of purposefulness in the wedding Mass."

The Rev. Scott Kopp will succeed Gaetano at Christ the Servant. Gaetano taught Kopp at Walsh. Kopp will remain the diocese's director of seminaries.

"I told him 'You don't have to fill my shoes; fill your own shoes,'" Gaetano said.

Peter Schafer will serve as OLOP's principal.

On June 23, Gaetano will receive ABCD's Lifetime Achievement Award at its 48th annual meeting and dinner.

Gaetano said he plans to stay involved in community. He also is thinking about visiting Tanzania, where there is a contingent of Walsh alumni, and returning to Italy and El Salvador.

"I would like to be be involved in the city, especially in southeast and northeast Canton," he said. "I never know what the next path is going to be. It's been a rich experience."

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton monsignor and educator Lewis Gaetano will retire on July 1