MANKATO — This year’s Father’s Day has a new meaning for the parishioners at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. It’s a time they will start to say goodbye to their “father,” the Rev. John Kunz.
Kunz, a Madelia native who comes from a family that includes “three nuns and a bunch of priests,” will be retiring this month after 49 years in the priesthood.
His parishioners will celebrate with him at St. John’s Faith Night tonight at the Mankato MoonDogs game, where Kunz will throw out the first pitch. And he will be honored with receptions following Masses on June 21-22.
That will begin a stretch of at least a month, he figures, when he will try to decide what he wants to do in retirement from the parish he has been at since 2008. His successor begins July 1.
For a man who ended up a priest to a very large degree because he was running away from something, Kunz has brought a great deal of light to his congregation. Literally and figuratively.
“I began working with Father John in March 2008, shortly after starting my role as director of liturgy and music at St. John’s,” Jaci James said. “Despite my initial nervousness, Father John took a gentle and thoughtful approach, meeting with each staff member to understand our roles and how we contributed to parish life.”
Listening has been a big part of who he is, he said, and in doing so, he has made St. John’s and its people more open and engaged in their church.
ESCAPING TO SEMINARY
Even though choosing a vocation was common within his family growing up, his choosing to attend seminary was more an escape during a time of a war in which he didn’t want to serve.
“That was during the Vietnam War,” he said. “And my first cousin died in the war — he was a few years ahead of me — and that made me decide I didn’t want to go to the war. I knew my older brother had gone to seminary.”
He attended four years at St. Mary’s College in Winona (currently St. Mary’s University), with four more years at St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, which is now called St. Thomas Theology School. As a bookend to his not wanting to serve in Vietnam, he was ordained in the country’s celebratory bicentennial year of 1976.
Attending divinity school earned him a 4D classification, which meant he couldn’t be drafted. He was ordained, even though Kunz admits he didn’t really like going to church as a high school student.
For him it all changed when he came to Mankato on vacation from seminary and connected with friends who were students at the college here. It’s a story he has shared before, he said.
“I went to a beer party … We got picked up for drinking underage, and I got thrown into the Blue Earth County Jail. And that night, I laid in that jail cell all night. I couldn’t sleep with just a bare bulb. I was doing a lot of thinking, and it was the first, because I thought, ‘I’m going to get kicked out of the seminary for this.’
“I found I didn’t want to get kicked out. So, that began me really on a path of saying, ‘I kind of want to do this.’”
WORKING WITH THE SISTERS
Growing up in Madelia, School Sisters of Notre Dame were his teachers. It’s fitting, then, that Kunz was assigned as new chaplain to the sisters at Mankato’s Good Counsel in June 1981 by Bishop Loras Watters, according to information from the SSND Archives. He filled that role until January 1988.
He began his service there under dark clouds. Literally.
“After serving in Rochester for three years, John arrived on the Hill the afternoon of June 23 during tornado warnings and a violent storm,” according to SSND records provided by longtime friend Sister Joyce Kolbet. “At the time of his arrival all the sisters were in the tunnel or other place of safety.”
They emerged, of course, and continued their longtime relationship with Kunz. While there, he also served students at Loyola High School as a member of the faculty, alongside SSND and lay staff.
He noted that many of the 15 sisters who remain in community at Mankato after the closing of Our Lady of Good Counsel attend St. John’s. It allows him to return the favor of guidance he received from them at an early age.
During his time at Loyola, he was in adjacent rooms with the Rev. Joe Fogal, another retired priest who has stayed in Mankato. As one of only a couple of retired priests in the western part of the Winona Diocese, Fogal expects Kunz will be in high demand to cover for priests on vacation or retreat.
A WELCOMING PARISH
About the parish membership, Kunz said, “When I came here, I discovered a people that were really welcoming and open, and that’s how they received me.”
As a seminarian, he came into a Catholic Church that had just dropped the Latin Mass and was much more open and contemporary in its operations.
James said Kunz took a personal approach with the team he worked with, introducing the Enneagram system, a framework based on nine basic personality types, to help people grow individually and as a team.
“This tool became a valuable part of welcoming new staff and fostering stronger collaboration for years to come,” she said.
He had considered retiring in 2020 when he turned 70, he said, but that’s when the pandemic hit and forced adjustments to how to serve parishioners. It helped them — and various other organizations — recognize technology that helped them serve members when they couldn’t attend services in person.
Those efforts have continued, used to help serve those who can no longer attend services in person, helping to stabilize a membership of about 2,500 in the church with a strong community history. About 100 people continue to attend services virtually, he estimated.
“One other thing I would say has been the joy here is the children. Actually, we have a lot of children and it’s been a gift to get them involved in the parish any way that I can,” Kunz said. He noted about 50 baptisms were performed last year.
That love and connection with children was echoed in comments by Kolbet.
“One of my favorite things is to sneak a peek from the piano to watch Father John receive the offerings of the children midway through the Mass. The delight in his face as the little ones walk, run or skip to present their gift is priceless,” Kolbet said.
“We sisters will miss our regular interactions with Father John,” she added.
BRINGING IN THE LIGHT
Although the St. John’s Church is made of natural limestone, much of it made possible through the Coughlan family, the church built nearly three-quarters of a century ago had become dark. That affected how people interacted with it, Kunz and James said. Shortly after he arrived, just as the Catholic Church was opening up, so did St. John’s.
“Under Father John’s leadership, our parish evaluated our worship space, studied the best things about it and the areas that could be improved,” James said. “We surveyed the entire parish and invited them to come and brainstorm and dream about who we wanted to be in this space in downtown Mankato.”
Small groups came up with big ideas that eventually opened the sanctuary, revived stained glass windows and moved the music from the balcony to be a more integral part of the Mass on the main floor.
“The church building was very dark and had no gathering space for people to talk before and after services. And so after one year here, I said, ‘OK, let’s study this.’ It took us three years to study, raise money and do the project,” Kunz said.
Although people may not have been sure if it was needed or what the results might be, general consensus is it contributes to what makes the church so welcoming now, he said.
“It really did open our church and made it much brighter, more welcoming, and just an inviting place to come into.”
SERVING THE PEOPLE
Kunz said he has been challenged to be more open and receptive to the people who come to their church, though it’s hard to see now as he greets parishioners after Mass in the open narthex. That opening up has included different ministries to serve people’s needs.
“We get a lot of people to come off the street or that are struggling, and we began opening our door every week, on Thursday morning, to the people who want to just come in. And we talk to each of them, we interview each one, find out what they’re doing, what they need and kind of help direct them to where they need to go,” Kunz said.
It now amounts to about 80 people, he said, who go downstairs to have a cup of coffee, some rolls and sit down and visit. It has helped St. John’s become a key piece in the collaborative efforts of churches and shelters in caring for the least among us.
And, as with his other efforts, it has helped prepare staff better for their other services.
“Through his example, I have come to cherish the opportunity to meet with families as they plan the funeral for their loved ones,” James said. “It has become the most precious gift in my role.”
WALKING IN FAMILIAR SHOES
“I’d say he has a good sense of humor. He relates well to people; I mean, he can talk to just about anybody,” Fogal said of Kunz. That comes in handy, even when dealing with other retired clergy.
“I remember giving him grief once about how slow he moves all the time,” said the shorter Fogal. “Except when he was on the racquetball court. We played handball against each other, too. And I remember him saying once, ‘Yeah, I’ve never worn out a pair of shoes.’”
Today, golf is more Kunz’s game.
Fogal knows the path Kunz will travel in retirement. Even though retired priests are not supposed to return to a parish they’ve served to perform funerals or weddings, Fogal knows those requests will come. A year ago, Fogal said he performed more than 30 funerals; Kunz had 48 at St. John’s.
After taking some time off to visit family and friends, Kunz said he will begin to chart his future course. Retired priests can be as busy as they want to be, he said, and he knows he will be pulled in many directions.
By about September, he expects to start telling those who ask that he is available to fill in.
“I’m kind of seeing where my future ministries will be. That’s why I’m kind of giving myself a little space to sort some of that through. … I want to stay alive in the ministry and the church, so we’ll see.”