CASEY, SOLANUS

Capuchin priest, b. Nov. 25, 1870, Oak Grove, Wisconsin; d. July 31, 1957, Detroit, Michigan. His parents, Bernard James Casey and Ellen Elizabeth Murphy, both immigrated from Ireland in the 1850s. They were married in Salem, Mass., in 1863. In 1865 they moved to an 80-acre farm near Prescott, Wisconsin. Bernard Francis was the sixth child in a family of ten boys and six girls. When he turned 17, he moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, and worked in a lumber mill, as a part-time prison guard, and as one of Stillwater's first streetcar operators. In 1891 Bernard entered Saint Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, where he began his secondary education. As a young seminarian, he visited the Capuchins. In 1897 he was invested as a novice at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit, receiving the religious name Francis Solanus. Solanus pronounced his simple vows on July 21, 1898 and returned to Milwaukee where at St. Francis Seminary he began his studies for the priesthood. Studies were extremely difficult for the young friar and questions arose among his professors and superiors as to his qualifications for ordination. His religious example eventually persuaded his superiors to permit his ordination and Solanus was ordained on July 24, 1904. However the young priest was not given faculties to preach or to administer the sacrament of penance.

Over the next twenty years Casey served at several parishes in New York—in Yonkers, the lower east side of Manhattan, and Harlem. In each of these parishes, Solanus served in unassuming ministries as sacristan and porter, and offered Mass each day without being able to preach. In Harlem, however, the provincial minister, Benno Aichinger, directed him to begin keeping records of "favors" he was influential in obtaining through enrollments in the Capuchin Seraphic Mass Association. His advice to those who came to him for help was simple. After encouraging them to make a sacrifice for the foreign missions, that is, be enrolled in the Seraphic Mass Association, he would tell them to thank God ahead of time for granting the favor they requested.

Casey returned to Saint Bonaventure's in Detroit in 1924, and ministered there until 1945. He became known for his charity to the poor; the image of him in the soup kitchen offering food, clothing, or simple advice to the poor was quite well known. During the war years the number of his "favors" steadily grew as people flocked to have a moment of his time or to receive his blessing. Because his health was failing, he was sent in 1945 to Saint Michael's Friary in Brooklyn, NY, and later to the Capuchin novitiate in Huntington, Indiana, where he remained until his return to Detroit in 1956. Suffering from skin cancer and a chronic skin disease, he spent much of

Odo Casel.

the following year, until his death, in Detroit's St. John Hospital.

Shortly after Casey's death, the process of gathering information about his life, work, and the favors granted through his intercession was begun. On July 11, 1995 he was declared a "servant of God." The decree states: "While [Casey's] example is relevant for all priests and religious, it would seem to be such in a particular manner for all Americans. They will be able to derive from his life an inspiration entirely based on faith and charity and, at the same time, deeply human: sociable, optimistic and cheerful, compassionate and active in trying to alleviate the spiritual and material suffering of others."

Bibliography: j. p. derum, The Porter of Saint Bonaventure (Detroit 1968). m. h. crosby, Thank God Ahead of Time (Chicago 1985). c. odell, Father Solanus: The Story of Fr. Solanus Casey, O.F.M. Cap. (Huntington 1988).

[r. j. armstrong]