A Golden Jubilarian's Reflection

It’s Been 50 Years of Grace-Filled Moments

By Msgr. Howard Basler

It’s difficult to realize that I’ve been a priest for 50 years. A golden anniversary was far from my mind when I arrived in 1958 at St. Andrew Avellino, Flushing, my first assignment.

The pastor, Msgr. Francis Oechsler, was on a rare vacation and the parish priests were wary, not familiar with Archbishop McEntegart’s new policy of summer appointments, and wondering who, if anyone, would be reassigned. It turned out to be a summer assignment. Before November, the pastor and the parish man who served as his driver drove me to St. Matthias in Ridgewood.

Msgr. Paul Faustmann met me at the rectory door. “Call me Paul” was his greeting and so began a long relationship which was more father-son than pastor-curate. Msgr. Faustmann was a marvelous man who made his rectory a real home and urged his parish priests to do the same.

“When we heard your name, we thought we were getting a good German boy but then we saw your face,” was Rosary President Mrs. Herman’s first reaction to my presence. But St. Matthias quickly became home even after the bishop reassigned me as a teacher at Cathedral Prep Seminary in Brooklyn.

There, I was to teach religion and mathematics and moderate the school’s interscholastic athletic program. I undertook the teaching of religion with enthusiasm, mathematics with trepidation, and athletics with more determination than success.

My years at Cathedral on Washington and Atlantic aves. were happy, shared with faculty, many of whom remain friends to this day. The students put up with my antics in the algebra class. My work as a religion teacher was more problematic.

A year into my time at Cathedral, Father James Kirrane returned from a summer of teaching music at the University of Notre Dame with news of a religion program being established that would bring top European and U.S. scholars to the university. I responded with enthusiasm and began four summers of transformation and renewal at Notre Dame.

There was a difficulty. These were the beginning days of the Second Vatican Council and the European scholars had prepared us for a new world in catechetics and theology far beyond the religion books at Cathedral. My ill-conceived goal was to bring Cathedral up to date and further to bring the school into the mainstream of the diocese. This made me something of an unintended maverick.

Meanwhile, Cathedral played interscholastic sports and lost against the larger schools with more developed programs. But Cathedral was there on the court and baseball diamonds with big schools, and that was my goal.

Queens Cathedral opened in 1963 and I moved from St. Matthias to the new residence in Elmhurst.

I moved again to taste a new ministry at The Brooklyn Newman Center and life with Catholic students in a public college.

Again and on a different level as a result of Vatican II, a Priests’ Senate was formed and I was elected secretary. Two years later, another call from the bishop and an appointment as executive secretary to the Senate.

Again I had a goal, perhaps ill-conceived and certainly not properly explained. The Senate was to be a completely open body and so the Senate Notes began in which I tried to record everything said. I mailed these to the priests of the diocese.

While living at the Newman Center, I was appointed the assistant diocesan director and then assistant director of Religious Education.

Next, I became pastor of St. Andrew the Apostle, Bay Ridge, and also served as director of Social Action with Catholic Charities. Through all this, I was a columnist and editorial writer for The Tablet.

Such has been a long and varied career which I describe as one of wins and losses. Through the years, I also served as the president of the diocesan Catholic High School Athletic Association and as part-time chaplain to the students of Our Lady of Wisdom Academy.

Among the wins was teaching religion to Father Michael Himes at Cathedral Prep. He became one of America’s foremost theologians, due in no part to me. At Our Lady of Wisdom, I had some contact with Dr. Julie Upton, the theologian at St. John’s University.

I have had a varied career in the service of the Lord. The priests with whom I lived and worked have been an encouragement. My extended education has been a support.

It all makes 50 years an unbelievable grace for which I can only thank God.

back to top