Joliet priest, stepfather and ‘barking dog’ for justice to celebrate final Mass on Father’s Day

JOLIET – It’s fitting for the Rev. Ray Lescher to celebrate his last Mass as a parish priest today at 10 a.m.

After all, it is Father’s Day.

For 17 years, Lescher has been the spiritual father to 180 people at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Joliet. But he’s also the stepfather of 10 children, and now has 23 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

Through it all, Lescher’s aim was to represent the Catholic Church in its truest universal sense. He paraphrased the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as having said the most segregated time in the United States is Sunday morning.

“This was never true at Sacred Heart,” Lescher said. “We are black; we are white; we are brown; hospitable and welcoming to everyone.”

On Thursday, the Will County Board recognized Lescher with a proclamation. Board member the Rev. Herb Brooks Jr., a pastor at St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Joliet, read the proclamation and commended Lescher’s many contributions to the church, parishioners and Will County residents.

“Father Ray, the work you’ve done sets the bar high for others to follow,” board member Denise Winfrey said to Lescher.

Sister Judith Davies, chancellor for the Diocese of Joliet, echoed that sentiment, and added that Lescher’s concern for others – especially the poor and those without rights – is evident in his actions.

“He is known as someone who loves the Lord, loves the people of Sacred Heart and is a champion for social justice,” Davies said. “He’s just a man of integrity.”

And yet, Lescher wrestled with the notion of priesthood. The desire to be a father in the literal sense was strong.

“I always wanted to have 10 children,” he said.

But God’s calling was stronger, and Lescher yielded to it.

Fatherhood journey

Born in Chicago, Lescher was ordained in 1963 and said his first Mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Elmhurst. In June of that year, he was assigned to St. Rose of Lima Church in Kankakee.

That church, Lescher said, had a connection with the black community of the northeast side of town. Serving that community was a mission church, Our Lady of Fatima. Nearby was another Catholic church, St. Stanislaus, which had a school and did not welcome blacks.

After three years, Lescher approached Romeo Blanchette, then the bishop of the Diocese of Joliet. Lescher asked Blanchette to close the mission and integrate St. Stanislaus.

Lescher said Blanchette did, and Lescher was assigned to St. Stanislaus as an associate pastor.

“I spent the next nine years at St. Stanislaus, where I met my wife, Anne,” he said.

Lescher also became involved with the civil rights movement. He marched, boycotted, and was gassed and arrested, he said.

He also started several programs there: The St. Martin of Tours Infant Nursery, the Dr. King Adult Education Center, the Dr. King Daycare Center, the Old Fair Park Daycare Center, the St. Martin of Tours Resale Shop and the Dr. King Summer Tutorial Program.

Anne, a widow with 10 children, directed the infant nursery and resale shop.

“I fell in love with Anne,” Lescher said. “She was the most marvelous woman I’ve seen to this day. She was just a warm and loving person.”

Lescher said he left the priesthood in June 1975 and accepted a job in Minnesota with the Ramsey County Correctional Center in St. Paul. He bought an eight-bedroom house for $27,900, and moved in Anne and six of her children.

At the time of their marriage, Anne was 41 and Lescher was 40.

The Catholic Church would not allow the couple to be married in the church, but Lescher said he and Anne did join a Catholic church in the St. Paul area and became very active in it.

Lescher said the years he shared with Anne were the best of his life.

“During that time, we raised six of her children. We raised seven of our grandchildren and – being an interracial couple – we found a niche as foster parents, so we raised four foster children,” he said. “For five years we had 15 kids in the house, and seven of those were under 7 years of age. The washer and dryer went all day and all night.”

Despite their joy together, Lescher said he and Anne did experience challenges. For instance, they both underestimated her boys’ response to having a white stepfather.

“A couple of the boys acted out – skipping school, truancy stuff – and ended up in the correction department on probation. Here I am, a big shot in the corrections department and I’m going to court with my own kids,” Lescher said. “But Anne and I, we stayed strong together – and our love was strong – so we were able to hang tight.”

Lescher is especially proud he and Anne could offer the kids a Catholic education for grade and high school. Some of the children attended college, he said. Education was a top priority for Lescher and Anne.

“I enjoyed family life,” Lescher said. “I enjoyed being a husband. I enjoyed being a father, and I took pride in all the kids’ sporting events and dancing events.”

After Anne died of esophageal cancer Feb. 7, 1995, Lescher contacted Joseph Imesch, the bishop of the Diocese of Joliet at the time, and asked to return as a priest.

A return to ministry

Imesch agreed and assigned Lescher to Sacred Heart in 1998. He succeeded the Rev. Dick Bennett, who for 12 years had worked hard to incorporate a changing neighborhood into the active life of the church.

The following year, Imesch also granted permission for Lescher to raise his then-13-year-old granddaughter Jessica, as her current situation was not working well. Jessica lived with Lescher at the rectory for the next 13 years, he said, where the Sacred Heart community embraced her with love and acceptance.

Lescher then immersed himself in the Joliet community and became a “barking dog” for justice.

He was a member of the following groups: Joliet Area Community Based Organization, Warehouse Workers for Justice, Joliet Citizens United Against the Detention Prison, Joliet Citizens United Against Silver Cross Hospital, Churches United in the Fight Against AIDS and Joliet Citizens for the Eighth District. Only the last group is still active, Lescher said.

Raymond A. Bolden, a member at Sacred Heart, feels Lescher will be a blessing wherever he goes next.

“He has been a man of honor, a man of courage, a man of serious spirituality, and he’s been a leader in the idea of ending poverty, ending hatred and ending needless incarceration,” Bolden said. “He’s been a real priest.”

Having served as a father on many levels, Lescher feels all fathers should show acceptance, forgiveness, encouragement and love. He’s thankful for majoring in journalism at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, as it helped him write clear, concise sermons.

Lescher said he is thrilled to have served under two great popes, Pope John XXIII and Pope Francis. He doubts he’ll be bored in retirement.

Lescher plans to catch up on fishing, reading (“I went cold turkey on the TV 18 years ago”) and vegetable gardening (“I grow the kitchen sink. I throw in everything”).

“To me, gardening is therapy. It’s very calming,” Lescher said. “I love to see things growing. All you have to do is water them and they never talk back to you.”

Lescher will live in an apartment near a small church that has no priest, so he will celebrate Mass there daily. And where is this apartment?

In Hopkins Park, near Momence where Anne is buried, in Pembroke Township right outside Kankakee, Lescher said. It’s also the fourth-poorest township in the United States, he added. Many of its residents have no electricity or running water.

“As a side note, it’s got very sandy soil. It grows the second largest number of watermelons in the United States,” Lescher said. “So I’ll have two gardens there.”

• The Herald-News reporter Mike Mallory contributed to this story.