One way to measure the strength of a community is by how well it takes care of its elders.
Older people have a lot to share: Wisdom, experience, knowledge. People who value such traits show they care about others, that they want to build upon past accomplishments to create a better future.
A local faith community on Sunday is celebrating a former pastor’s 70 years in the priesthood. St. Emeric Catholic Church in Country Club Hills is honoring the Rev. John Rochford with a Mass and reception.
I met Rochford, 95, on Wednesday, the 70th anniversary of his 1947 ordination. He’s the last surviving member of his class at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein.
I visited Rochford where he resides at Holy Family Villa in Palos Park, a 129-bed nursing and rehabilitation center administered by Catholic Charities. It’s a beautiful setting bordered by forest preserves. On nice days, some residents sit outside and enjoy the peaceful sounds of birds and other wildlife.
Rochford gets around in a wheelchair these days, but he’s in relatively good health. He seemed sharp, witty and friendly as we carried on a 30-minute conversation. I asked him to what did he attribute his longevity.
“It runs in the family,” he told me. “My mother died at 97. They’ve always told me the Rochfords seem to last a long time. Maybe that’s because we don’t cause any trouble.”
Rochford was born in 1921 on Chicago’s South Side. He attended St. Joachim’s Grammar School at 700 E. 91st St. and Quigley Preparatory Seminary. He shared a funny story about a time he returned to St. Joachim for a confirmation ceremony conducted by the Chicago Archdiocese’s late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
“Cardinal Bernardin told a story that broke up the whole place,” Rochford said. “He was going up the elevator with a young lady who was going to make her confirmation.”
When the cardinal mentioned the name of her school, Rochford said the girl told Bernardin, “Your eminence, when we say Joachim, at the same time we usually punch somebody.”
Rochford said his family didn’t have a lot of money when he was a child growing up during the Great Depression. But, he said, they did OK. His father always had a job and worked for many years as a streetcar motorman.
“I remember him stuffing paper into his galoshes during cold weather because he was out in front,” Rochford told me. Later, he said, his father worked as a security guard at Mercy Hospital on south Michigan Avenue.
“He kept working all his life,” Rochford said.
I imagined what it must have been like for Rochford to begin working as a priest at age 25 in 1947, soon after the end of World War II. A lot has changed in the Catholic Church since then. Prior to the Vatican II reforms of the 1960s, priests used to say Mass in Latin, with their backs to the congregation.
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A biography in a program for Sunday’s celebration said Rochford’s first assignment was at St. Mark Church in Chicago. He then served at St. Bartholomew, St. Raymond de Penafort in Mount Prospect and was chaplain at Alexian Brothers Medical Center.
I asked Rochford about how greater numbers served in the priesthood back then, when several priests typically were assigned to a parish and shared a rectory.
“We always had several priests living together in a house,” he said. “That was a lot of fun.”
Rochford seemed modest and humble, like a dutiful servant who did his job well but was reluctant to sound boastful about any accomplishments.
“I was fortunate to have easy jobs,” he said. “I was not too heroic. The parishes I worked at were all reasonably funded. I never had to do a huge fundraising operation. I never had to build a church, or school, or even a rectory. Maybe a new roof. It wasn’t too difficult.”
St. Emeric Parish was founded in 1960, and Rochford was its second pastor, according to a history published on the church’s website. Rochford was pastor from 1972 until his retirement in 1991.
“Father Rochford’s years were marked by racial change in Country Club Hills,” according to the website. “While many were threatened by this, others were anxious to welcome all believers to Saint Emeric. This is the greatest part of Father Rochford’s legacy to our parish.”
I asked Rochford about how he is credited for leading by example and spreading a message of inclusiveness.
“We managed to convince some of the black Catholics they should take part in different activities — serve as Eucharistic ministers and ushers,” Rochford recalled. “They became part of the community. A lot of parishes were losing people back then and combining with other parishes.”
Embracing the community’s newer residents was a way to ensure the parish’s survival, he told me.
“You didn’t have as many Catholics going to Mass anymore,” Rochford said. “We decided we weren’t going to resist, but rather to welcome.”
I learned of the celebration for Rochford from Mike and Marge Gleason, longtime St. Emeric parishioners.
“Father Rochford is a humble, spiritual leader who did many things quietly to help others. He continues to inspire us,” Marge Gleason said.
“He is a man of many talents that led the faith community of St. Emeric with dedication and respect to all,” said Mike Gleason, who Rochford asked to join the parish’s council and finance committee in1975. “I witnessed his pastoral leadership over the 19 years he served St. Emeric.”
At age 95, Rochford is among the oldest living priests in the Chicago Archdiocese, but not the oldest. That designation belongs to the Rev. George McKenna, 97, who lives at the Bishop Lyne Residence, a facility adjacent to Holy Family Villa where Rochford lived until 2012.
After his retirement from St. Emeric in 1991, Rochford continued to serve weekend Masses for many years at St. John Catholic Church in Glenwood.
The Mass celebrating Rochford’s 70 years in the priesthood is at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at St. Emeric, 4330 W. 180th St., Country Club Hills. A $25 donation is requested for the reception in the church hall following the Mass.
At the end of our conversation, a caregiver at Holy Family Villa asked Rochford if he had any words of wisdom to share with readers.
“God is good,” he said. “Count on it, and trust in God.”
Twitter @tedslowik