The call from Cardinal Francis George came at 9:35 p.m. Morale and envelope collections at Sts. Faith, Hope and Charity Parish in Winnetka were sinking, and he needed a pastor to begin the healing.
The priest answering the call last month, Rev. Kevin Spiess, was tapped as the turnaround type, a Harvard Business School graduate who already had worked fundraising and membership miracles as pastor of St. Alphonsus Church in Lemont.
“The cardinal said, `I know I’m asking a lot, but I need you,'” Spiess said as he sat in his Lemont office near a print of his favorite Michelangelo, “The Creation of Man.” “Could I have said no? Yes, but clearly this is like a family. If someone is sick or seriously afflicted, you have to respond.”
Spiess, 55, a former Christian Brother who has four postgraduate degrees and teaches business classes at Lewis University, where he served as dean of the business school, is attacking his new mission like a chief executive officer faced with a struggling company. The task is formidable, Spiess says.
“Personally, I see that we are at a point in our nation where we are confronting issues of trust,” he said. “Do you trust Enron? Can you trust the FBI to protect us? Who can you trust anymore?”
Spiess’ new mission, to rebuild trust at Sts. Faith, Hope and Charity, is one that is being taken up in numerous parishes throughout the archdiocese now that U.S. bishops have set new guidelines for handling abuse cases.
But Sts. Faith, Hope and Charity, a wealthy parish with a history of sharing collections with as many as six poorer parishes, has grappled with two crises facing the church–the exodus of priests who want to marry and the resignation of priests accused of abuse.
It lost two pastors in less than a year, one well-loved priest, Rev. Thomas Ventura, who left late last year to marry, and his successor, Rev. Robert Kealy, who resigned after eight months when abuse allegations from the 1970s surfaced in March.
Not used to such a leadership vacuum–the first pastor served more than 30 years and Spiess is the fifth pastor in the church’s 66-year history–and under the shadow of the national abuse crisis, a parishioner revolt began to brew beyond the dark green steps of the sanctuary.
One parishioner even started a boycott of donations in the 5,500-member parish to express laity’s disappointment in church leaders and the desire for a louder voice in its business operations. Parish officials said donations are less than they were in the same period last year, but declined to say by how much.
Spiess said the potential deficits will be among the problems he will tackle when he starts full time in the next few months. He’s been advised that the Easter collection was down by half, and weekly collections are off about 25 percent, he said.
Most lay leaders say the lighter collection baskets are a reflection of a temporary loss of parish spirit rather than a boycott.
“It’s like, for a time, we lost our soul,” said Dolly Arnolds, the parish’s evening secretary. “Spiess is like a magnet drawing us back together.”
After Spiess said mass at the Winnetka church, he gathered the children around the altar, his trademark.
“I gave them homework,” he said. “I asked them to send me a postcard wherever they went this summer.” He’s expecting notes from several countries.
His name is pronounced “spies” but some parishioners are calling him “Father Spice” because of his warm and lively manner.
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“I want the children to remember my name, so I tell them I love pies,” Spiess said. “I tell them to add an `s’ on each end, and that’s how they can spell my name.”
That personal attention, an attempt to connect one-on-one, is a large part of Spiess’ success at St. Alphonsus.
Parishioners there choked back tears as Spiess led the annual volunteer appreciation dinner. Dressed in an apron with a mock bow tie and matching gold cummerbund, Spiess tried to joke with the crowd assembled in the church basement.
Later, his voice broke as he thanked the parishioners for their work and remembered how much they had done together.
Spiess drew in parishioner Kathy Burke, 34, who was baptized in the parish and decided to move back after living in Plainfield. “He re-generated a sense of community,” she said. “He’s vibrant and motivational. I don’t want him to leave, but he’s what [Sts. Faith, Hope and Charity] needs. He’s someone they can trust.”
John Iberle, head of the Sts. Faith, Hope and Charity council, said Spiess’ appointment brings “a sense of relief. We feel we’ve got a very good man who is going to be a good pastor for us. Obviously time will tell. … The bigger question that precipitated all of this–people will still be wrestling with this for a while.”
Michael Tario, who led the boycott, said Spiess’ challenge is establishing credibility, especially since the last two pastors left in “rather scandalous situations.”
“The issue is of faith,” he said. “You have two people who in one way, shape or form, were not holding completely to the faith. People are no longer praying, paying and obeying mindlessly.”
Spiess sees his role as “a companion on their journey. My management training is a lens, but it’s just one of many I will use to serve the parish. I hope to lead them into a stronger relationship with God.”
Spiess’ spiritual odyssey has many twists.
Born in Chicago in 1946 to a Lutheran father and a Catholic mother, Spiess learned early that spirituality meant devotion. His father would drop his wife and three children off at Catholic mass, then drive to his own church. Spiess was raised Catholic, but often attended Lutheran services and said Lutheran prayers at meal and bedtime.
He was attracted to teaching and service and decided to become a Christian Brother in 1964. He earned a business administration degree from Lewis University in 1969, a religious studies master’s from Loyola University in 1971, a master’s in education administration from DePaul University, and a master’s of business administration from the University of Notre Dame in 1974.
After completing a doctorate in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard University in 1978, Spiess decided to leave the Christian Brothers, and at the time, he recalled, he was not considering the priesthood.
He weighed going into research, having done extensive study on executives in their first year at a corporation. But when, at age 32, he was offered the dean position of Lewis’ business school, Spiess jumped at the chance.
“I have always loved teaching, and I decided to stay with college administration as opposed to corporate,” he said.
In the early ’80s, Spiess became drawn to the priesthood. He likens the attraction to “the same reasons you decide to marry someone.”
“When you are really in love with someone, you see everything differently,” he said. “That’s how it is with experiencing God. Your life is transformed. The level of happiness is so much more intense.”
He entered the seminary in 1984 and was ordained at age 40.
As an archdiocesan priest, Spiess has worked at the parish level and in administration. He was vicar for administration at the archdiocese from 1990 to 1995, when the archdiocese was forming policies to address abuse allegations. He still serves on the Archdiocesan Finance Council, a post he has held since 1987.
But his crowning job, he said, was his six-year tenure at St. Alphonsus. He led a $500,000 renovation of the church that restored some of the church’s original elegance and even bought antique pulpits and candle holders on eBay.
Always mindful of technology, he had special lighting installed so masses could be televised on cable TV, including a special service in which children play all the roles in the mass, from usher to reader.
“The grandparents like to see that,” he said.
Spiess said the parish grew by 40 percent under his tenure, to 3,700 parishioners, and mass attendance increased by 40 percent. Families with children in religious education or the parish school attend mass 85 to 100 percent of the time, he said. Collections nearly tripled to $9,000 per week, compared with $3,500 before.
Spiess was in the middle of a half-dozen other projects at St. Alphonsus when he got the cardinal’s summons to Winnetka.
“I’m going there to listen,” Spiess said, clasping his hands and looking into the distance. “I don’t have the answers. I have come to join their journey.”