Father James Schaeper installed as pastor at St. Joseph Parish and St. Edward Mission

Bella Bailey

Multimedia Correspondent

Bishop John Iffert officially installed Father James Schaeper pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Warsaw, and St. Edward Mission, Owenton, through the Rite of Installation of a Pastor, Aug. 16. Father Schaeper was gifted the keys to his parish, and vowed to fulfill his duties as pastor, making sacraments regularly available to his flock and sharing the word of God in accordance with the Church.

Father Schaeper’s elevation to pastor comes after two years as Parochial Administrator to the parish and its mission. “What’s the difference? What’s the difference between a priest who is an administrator and a priest who is a pastor,” asked Bishop Iffert to the congregation of St. Joseph Parish. Answering his own question he said, “To us biblical language, you might say it’s the difference between a hired hand and a shepherd … When a man becomes pastor, he becomes the shepherd of a local flock.”

This role comes with increased duties and responsibilities, said Bishop Iffert, explaining that Father Schaeper now has “responsibilities toward you,” he said to the congregation. “As pastor, he is in a sacred obligation to provide for you all of the instruments of sanctification that the Church extends. To assure that you have access to regular sacramental life, to the Eucharist, to the forgiveness of sins. He has a responsibility for the catechesis of every person in the parish,” said Bishop Iffert.

To Father Schaeper, being a pastor means “leading others to Christ,” he said. Through regular use of the sacraments, of Communion and reconciliation. “With faith … and with love and an open heart,” he said. “We bring the sacraments, and being there for people in difficult times, but also in joyous times … helping them to do God’s will and to live out their vocation with faith and cooperating with God’s will.”

The Gospel story for the day of Father Schaeper’s installation was the story of the Canaanite woman who was begging Christ for the healing of her daughter, who was wrought with evil spirits.

“Her only thought is the freedom of her child,” said Bishop Iffert, “and she has come to believe that Jesus can free her child, and in freeing her child, free her.” The woman pleaded with Jesus, calling out to him, “Lord, help me,” said Bishop Iffert.

“Father Jim,” said Bishop Iffert addressing Father Schaeper, “everything you and I do in service to the people of God should begin with that prayer of faith. Everything we do must begin with trust in the Lord God, and with crying out to the Lord to help us in everything we do.”

In begging for the healing of her child, the woman makes Jesus and his disciples “uncomfortable,” said Bishop Iffert, for they believe there is no way they can help her. This uncomfortable tension exists in the world today, said Bishop Iffert, “Our life together as the family of God is not going to be perfect this side of Heaven.”

From this Gospel reading, it is taught that amidst that tension “to persist in charity, to persist in love … always in enduring love, always go on teaching, pleading administering mercy with a persistent need in Christ,” he said.

“It’s great instruction for us today, we celebrate this priest who has become your pastor, and this people who has become your flock. Begin everything you do together in faith,” said Bishop Iffert.

During his remarks at the conclusion of Mass, Father Schaeper said, “we’ve done really great things here by cooperating with God’s grace … God bless you all and thank you.”