Father Solanus Casey, Revised and Updated. Catherine Odell
as well as the testimonies about his holiness from hundreds who had known Fr. Francis Solanus Casey, which seemed to establish his cause for sainthood.
Although the city of Detroit had informally “canonized” the soft-spoken Capuchin doorkeeper decades before his death, an official Church investigation into the virtues of Fr. Solanus wasn’t announced by Cardinal John Dearden, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, until 1976. All of Fr. Solanus’s writings and many testimonials of those who knew him were gathered. More than 3,600 pages of documents were collected and transported to Rome.
From 1960, three years after his death, Fr. Solanus’s story was also being spread through the Father Solanus Guild, a group of devotees who distributed information about his life and ministry. The guild grew to a membership of one hundred thousand in forty-three countries. And at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit, an impressive Solanus Casey Center was built in 2002. It quickly became a pilgrimage site and annually draws up to two hundred thousand visitors from around the world. Pilgrims can visit his tomb and learn not only about the life of Solanus Casey but also about other saintly Christians who, like the doorkeeper, boldly lived the Christian beatitudes and the works of mercy.
On July 11, 1995, in Rome, Pope John Paul II declared that Fr. Solanus had certainly lived a life of “heroic virtue.” From then on, Fr. Solanus would be referred to as “Venerable Solanus Casey.” The declaration of “venerable” status is the first of three major steps toward sainthood.
In September 2016, the miracle needed for the beatification of Solanus Casey was approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The miracle involved a woman with an incurable, congenital skin disease who was visiting the United States. She was visiting a Capuchin friend in Detroit and went to the Solanus Center to pray at the tomb of Fr. Solanus. She wanted to pray for others who needed healing. While praying, she heard a voice within telling her: “Pray for yourself.” She did and was instantly cured of the lifelong skin ailment. When she returned home to her own country, she went to five doctors. They all agreed that there was no scientific explanation for her cure. She wished to remain anonymous for a time because she did not want to draw undue attention to herself.
On May 4, 2017, Pope Francis announced that Venerable Solanus Casey would be beatified. On that same day, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit announced that the necessary miracle had been approved. A few weeks later, the date for beatification ceremonies was set for November 18, 2017, at Ford Stadium in Detroit.
Once a person is beatified and declared “blessed,” public devotion to the person is then permitted. Churches may be named after the beatified person. Statues or pictures of the person may be displayed. Masses may be said in his or her honor. Solanus Casey is the second native-born American man to be beatified. Fr. Stanley Rother (1935–1981), born in Oklahoma and martyred as a missionary in Guatemala in 1981, was to be beatified a few weeks earlier on September 23, 2017.
A new miracle occurring after his beatification must be verified to move the Solanus Casey cause to the final stage — canonization. The Capuchin community along with supporters around the world and the city of Detroit believe that will happen before long. The life of Fr. Solanus changed others, often after no more than a momentary meeting. His closeness to the Lord was so apparent that people of all ages, creeds, economic backgrounds, and cultures were drawn to him.
“Don’t worry. God’s in charge,” Fr. Solanus Casey often advised those who came to ask for his prayers. “God knows the best way to get things done.” He also reminded worried visitors that nothing in this world could block God’s blessings and mercy.
One day, during Fr. Solanus’s time in Detroit, a small boy with a cast on his arm sat in the front waiting room of St. Bonaventure’s friary. After dozens of others moved ahead to ask the bearded Capuchin for a blessing, the boy finally moved to the porter’s desk with his mother. He had heard of the wonderful healings accomplished through this priest’s prayers. Suddenly, to the mother’s surprise, the boy began to tug anxiously at the cast encasing his arm.
The friar with the warm blue eyes and smile leaned over the desk to speak to the boy. He knew what the child was thinking. “God’s blessing goes right on through,” Fr. Solanus reassured the boy. With that, he blessed the youngster’s arm — cast and all — and then his mother. The boy’s face lit up with understanding and peace. He smiled back at Fr. Solanus and took him at his word.
In this book, I hope you will see how one man’s life and faith led many people from all walks of life to see that God’s blessings do penetrate — and transform — the pain, troubles, heartaches, and sickness in our lives.
Catherine M. Odell
August 9, 2017
Acknowledgments
This book traces its beginning to the decade (1946–1956) that Fr. Solanus lived at St. Felix Friary in Huntington, Indiana, where Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., is also located. Early in 1956, he was transferred back to Detroit, where he died in 1957. When I lived in Huntington, many years after his death, some people were still talking of him and telling their own stories about him. I am thankful to all those who shared their personal Solanus stories.
Great thanks are also due to the wonderful people at the Solanus Casey Center (www.solanuscenter.org) in Detroit, where efforts continue to promote the cause and story of Fr. Solanus Casey. The late Br. Leo Wollenweber, OFM Cap, an early vice-postulator of the cause for Solanus’s beatification and canonization, offered his time and wonderful Capuchin hospitality to me more than once.
Br. Leo’s personal memories of Fr. Solanus, and his cooperation in opening the archives of Solanus material to me, were invaluable contributions. Direct quotations from the writings of Fr. Solanus (notably in the section headed “Words and Wisdom of Fr. Solanus” in the latter part of this work) have been left intact — grammatical inconsistencies and all — to maintain the flavor and spirit of the Capuchin’s innermost thoughts.
I am very grateful, as well, to Fr. David Preuss, OFM Cap, director of the Solanus Casey Center in Detroit, and to Br. Richard Merling, OFM Cap, vice-postulator of the Solanus Casey cause and director of the Father Solanus Guild. Br. Richard and Br. Michael Gaffney, OFM Cap, were helpful in acquiring photos for this book. All of this wonderful Capuchin cooperation has helped tell the story of Fr. Solanus.
Thanks also goes to Mike Stechschulte of The Michigan Catholic for his help in providing additional photographs.
Chapter One
The Caseys’ Homestead in America (1865–1882)
It was the twenty-fifth of November 1870 — exactly one month before Christmas — when a newborn’s cry could be heard inside the three-room log house near Oak Grove, Wisconsin, just south of Prescott. The snow-topped cabin was perched upon a bluff high above the mighty Mississippi River, the boundary at this point between Wisconsin and Minnesota. But here, twenty-five miles from St. Paul — across the river and about two hundred miles from where the Mississippi River has its origins — the river was “modest” and not quite so “mighty.”
The snug Irish Catholic family at home inside the cabin had origins far from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Barney and Ellen Casey were immigrants from Ireland to America during and after the years of Ireland’s Great Potato Famine of the 1840s.
Bernard and Ellen didn’t fully know the size of this migration from their native Ireland. They knew only that they had plenty of Irish company on the crossing boats. Historians confirmed their impressions, noting later that four million Irish had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to America from 1845 to 1900. “Poor Ireland’s done” and “the country’s gone forever,” Irish immigrants told one another in this country.
While the Caseys were still thinking of a name for the newborn boy on this cold day in 1870, his mother, Ellen Elizabeth Murphy Casey, was resting. She herself had also been