Remembering Father Latus

Father Charles Latus presides over the first Wedding Mass celebrated at the new opened St. Catherine’s Church in the hamlet of Mendon, NY on September 28, 1991.

My father and brother erected the family estate with their own hands. After a long search my parents found a perfect parcel on which to build. While I toiled away deskbound in some distant cubicle, the other men in the family conveyed materials in a beat-up Ford pick-up to the site. Reminiscent of “Carosa and Son” (the masonry business started by my grandfather with my father riding shotgun), the two constructed a home of their dreams.

Oddly, it wasn’t their dream home. That would come decades later.

Coincidentally, they located both homes in the Town of Mendon. The first was the ideal family home. The second was the ideal home for retirement.

That first home was more than the “ideal” family home, it was the last home that housed the entire family – Mother, Father, two adult sons, a high school daughter and an elementary school daughter. We were all there. Until the company my father worked for decided to shut down the Rochester office and transfer him to Albany.

But that’s another story. This is a story about melding into a community.

We quickly adopted Mendon as our home. There are three things that make a community a home – a church, a school, and a vibrant newspaper. We weren’t here long enough for the last two, but we quickly dove into life at St. Catherine’s.

While newbies, we learned as much as we could about the parish community. Monsignor Schnacky held the admiration of the Church goers, and us, too.

He was quite a pastor. Not afraid to butt heads with the Diocese, he stood up for his flock, embracing the kind of independence that drew the people closer to him and to St. Catherine’s. To give you a sense, he understood his parishioners. He didn’t treat them all as one uniform crowd. Each was an individual, although they shared commonalities.

For example, some were skiers, hunters, and early risers who wanted a no-frills Mass. Monsignor Schnacky gave it to them. Sunday morning’s first Mass was quick. It had no music, a quick homily, and a crisp delivery. He designed Sunday’s middle Mass for families. It was tradition. The homily stuck to traditional themes. He kept it simple, so the children understood the lessons. The last Mass on Sunday tended to be for the intellectual crowd. The sophisticated sermons pressed those in the pews to consider more deeply their spiritual lives.

Of course, the Saturday evening Mass, as was true for most Parishes at the time, appealed to the more avant-garde crowd, the ones too hip for the Sunday Masses. Sundays were for organs. Saturdays were for folk guitars.

Monsignor Schnacky was a brilliant marketer. He knew the success of St. Catherine’s could only be measured by one metric: Is the Church a building, or a community? He opted for the latter.

Sure, he built the Community Center, established community ballfields and encouraged the formation of the Monsignor Schnacky Community Players (their very names spelling out his mission). The broader community shared these facilities. The Mendon Community Preschool was housed in the bottom floor of the Community Center. Cub Scout Pack 105 met there. Mendon Youth Baseball played on St. Catherine’s fields. Community theater players from beyond Mendon eagerly joined Monsignor Schnacky’s players. Indeed, for years the Mendon Firemen held their annual carnival on the Parish’s property.

To emphasize the spiritual over the physical, he steadfastly maintained St. Catherine’s would never build another church.

And that might have been his only mistake. When he passed away in January 1986 only hours after putting his long-time canine companion Heidi to sleep, the parish community had grown too large for the small chapel originally built in 1902. Mass had to be held in the Community Center or in the pavilion. St. Catherine’s was busting out at the seams, and it was still growing. But parishioners continued to feel the best way to honor Monsignor Schnacky was to never build a new church.

Into this environment strode Father Charles Latus. Fresh from a sabbatical in Rome and after nearly a decade working in the Diocesan office, Bishop Matthew H. Clark appointed him pastor of St. Catherine’s effective June 24, 1986.

I wasn’t at his first sermon. I didn’t move back to Mendon until August of that year. But, following the example set by my parents and grandparents, I loyally joined the church. If I was to become a part of the community of my new home, then, by golly, I had to become a part of the community. And for a Catholic in the Town of Mendon, that meant St. Catherine’s.

I recalled the character of my earlier stint as a member of the Hamlet’s parish. The faithful revolved around Monsignor Schnacky (and his loyal German Shepard Heidi) and they enjoyed participating in the orbit of the man and his dog. Who would want to replace such an irreplaceable icon?

Father Latus was the perfect choice for an impossible job. Mild and unassuming, Chuck knew he had to play the mere position holder while his parish continued to grieve their loss. Since I, like him, was new (for all intent and purposes), we had something in common. We both respected Monsignor Schnacky, but our grief was less acute than that of others. We could speak plainly to each other without fear of accidentally crossing some imaginary line of respect.

For the most part, though, we kept to the usual pastor/parishioner subjects. I didn’t know many people, so he was the first person I’d talk to if I had questions on things. At this point, my parents still lived in Albany, so he was the closest surrogate.

It was clear from the beginning that he did not want to change the ethos of St. Catherine’s. He respected Monsignor Schnacky in that way. On the other hand, I got the impression that the Diocese expected him to build a new church, one big enough to allow the parishioners to attend Mass in the comfort of a more traditional setting.

Father Latus once told me, many years after the new church was built, he had to wait before bringing the subject up. Too many people stuck with the “never another church” mantra. But new people were coming in. These new people weren’t bound by that mantra. By 1990, St. Catherine’s was gaining 7-10 families a month. Once enough new families joined, the idea of building a new church could be broached. He asked me to serve on the fundraising committee. We raised more than a million dollars in hopes of completing construction in time for the new church to open in 1992.

Things moved much faster. Lots of things. Not just the building of the church.

For one thing, I was single, having not yet met Betsy. I made my donation in the name of the “Carosa Family” more for my parents and siblings (none of which lived in Mendon at the time) than for my own family. But I knew I would one day have a family. That’s one of the things I would often talk to Father Latus about.

In the midst of this fundraising, Betsy came into my life. I won’t get into the details because it would sound like one of those sappy Hallmark movies (but I enjoyed this one). It was a whirlwind romance and, by the summer of 1991, we were ready to be married. But we missed the Pre Cana session we needed to take. We spoke to Father Latus and he arranged for a special one-on-one just for us.

He asked us when we wanted to get married. We responded by asking, “When will the new church be ready?” He said September, but he wasn’t exactly sure. He felt confident it would be open by the end of September. Betsy and I agreed September 28^th would be our wedding date. We were the first wedding held in St. Catherine’s new church. Father Latus presided.

Through the years, our kids got to experience the same community only a parish can provide. They were all baptized while Father Latus was pastor. St. Catherine’s continued to grow with a flourish of new families. When Father Latus had served the maximum twelve-year limit, he had to move on in 1998. At that time, the parish had a thousand families.

But it felt like one family.

Just like it did under Monsignor Schnacky.

And we can thank Father Latus for that.

Wouldn’t it be nice if those who remembered him got together to memorialize him in some way so that future parishioners at St. Catherine’s recognize his vital role in erecting the church they worship in?