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Monday, March 18, 2024

Three priests of the archdiocese retire

In recent months, three priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis retired: Father Cletus Basekala, Father Kevin Clinton and Father Patrick Kennedy. Each has served in the priesthood for more than 40 years. To mark their years of service, the Catholic Spirit interviewed the three priests about some of their experiences and plans for the near future. Portraits by Catholic Spirit photographer Dave Hrbacek.

Father Cletus Basekela Father Cletus Basekela

As a young boy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Father Cletus Basekela wanted to pursue a career in medicine.

It was a natural choice. His father was a nurse, and medical professionals were needed in his country.

“I grew up dreaming of becoming a doctor,” said Father Basekela, 74, who retired in June from active ministry in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. “When you get to the fifth grade, they (ask) what you want to do in life. I wrote down that I wanted to become a doctor.”

A priest at his home parish in Kamponde, the city where he grew up, found out about Father Basekela’s interest and talked to Father Basekela’s mother. She, in turn, talked to her son and offered some advice about considering either the religious life or medicine, which later turned into a priestly vocation and his ordination in 1971 for the Archdiocese of Kananga. He came to the U.S. in 1999 and has served in the archdiocese since arriving. His final assignment before retiring was at St. Jerome in Maplewood.

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Father Basekela recalled sitting down with his mother when he was 12 to talk about his future. She said this: “There are two ways of being a doctor. You can be a doctor of physical bodies. You can also be a doctor for souls. And, it is the same.”

After taking a few weeks to ponder her words, he decided to try to become a doctor of souls. He left for a high school minor seminary when he was 13, then continued his seminary formation all the way to ordination. He served in the Archdiocese of Kananga until he chose to take a sabbatical in 1999. Someone he had met while in seminary, Father Sebastian Bakatu, was serving in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, so Father Basekela chose to come here.

His first stop was at St. Mark in St. Paul. He took classes at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul for a year while on sabbatical, then began serving at St. Mark in 2000. From 2001-2007 he served at Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, then became pastor at St. Jerome in 2007.

“I enjoyed it every day,” he said of his time in the Twin Cities.

– Dave Hrbacek


Father Kevin ClintonFather Kevin Clinton

When Father Kevin Clinton retired in June, he knew just what to do.

After his last day as pastor of New Prague Area Catholic Community (formerly St. Wenceslaus), he went back to the farm where he grew up, about 30 miles southwest of New Prague.

“It was actually my great grandfather’s farm, an Irish immigrant who purchased the farm in 1856 — that’s three years before Minnesota became a state,” said Father Clinton, 70. “This is my childhood playground. This is a sacred space, in many respects, that spoke to me from early childhood, and still does.”

He has restored 70 of the property’s 160 acres to native prairie grasses and flowers. He invites groups to soak in the beauty, and see a living example of Pope Francis’ encyclical on care for the environment, “Laudato Si.’” He also has taken students from the parish school to roam his prairie and experience the natural world he passionately works to develop and protect.

“We took the fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders out,” said Father Clinton, who came to St. Wenceslaus in 2005. “They had a wonderful time.”

Father Clinton brought the prairie to the St. Wenceslaus campus when he initiated a project to renovate the church parking lot, planting native flowers and grasses and commissioning a metal sign with the words “Laudato Si’” on top.

Another part of his ministry was leading an effort to combine five rural parishes, including St. Wenceslaus, into one faith community: the New Prague Area Catholic Community, with three of the campuses still being used — St. Wenceslaus, St. Scholastica in Heidelberg and St. John the Evangelist in Union Hill.

Before coming to St. Wenceslaus, Father Clinton, who was ordained a priest at his home parish of Immaculate Conception in Marysburg in 1974, was pastor of St. Peter in Mendota for 17 years. He oversaw building a new $6.9 million worship space and social hall, which was completed in 2005. Also during his time at St. Peter, Faithful Shepherd Catholic School in Eagan opened in 2000. St. Peter supports the school, along with St. John Neumann and St. Thomas Becket, both in Eagan.

– Dave Hrbacek


Father Patrick Kennedy
Father Patrick Kennedy

Father Patrick Kennedy

Father Patrick Kennedy carries into retirement memories of people he served and who, in his view, did much more for him than he did for them.

“I’m a better priest, a better Christian through their families and example,” he said recently. “They encouraged me by the way they believed and lived, and tried to live.”

Many of those moments of faith and intimacy in prayer came at profound times in people’s lives, including the confessional and at people’s bedsides when they were sick or dying.

“I always found those moments to be very sacred,” Father Kennedy said.

A native of St. Paul who grew up half a block from then-St. Luke parish (now St. Thomas More), Father Kennedy, 69, was influenced at an early age by the faith of his late parents, Al and Ginny, seven sisters and a brother. He served at Masses and admired priests of the parish, who often were in and out of the Kennedy house. He graduated from then-St. Luke School and Cretin High School (now Cretin-Derham Hall) in St. Paul in 1969.

He carried those childhood memories with him into one year of college at Winona State in Winona before deciding to attend St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul. He was ordained in 1977.

Father Kennedy served 42 years of active ministry, including at 10 different parishes in Minneapolis, Eden Prairie, Coon Rapids, Fridley, Edina, St. Paul and South St. Paul. He was assistant director and director of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Vocations, a teacher at the seminary and the chaplain at Cretin-Derham.

Now, he is ready to take it a little slower.

“I’m trying to discern what my new normal is going to be,” he said. He enjoys swimming, traveling, reading and writing.

But soon after retiring from active ministry in June, Father Kennedy did travel to McAllen, Texas, and spent more than a month helping at a respite center for immigrants, mopping the floor, cleaning restrooms, making sandwiches.

“I wanted to volunteer someplace,” he said. “I’m usually the one giving orders. This was quite a different experience for me. That’s what I did to kind of clear my head, get out of town for awhile.”

Father Kennedy said he also is helping at Cretin-Derham, presiding at some of the morning and all-school Masses.

“It’s part of my wanting to give back to them what I received,” he said.

– Joe Ruff

 


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