Finding Faith In A Community Without Walls Or A Church Building

By Shannon Hicks

Forty years after being ordained into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, N.C., Leo E. McIlrath lives a faith-based life that is a little different than what his instructors may have envisioned. He still shares the word of God, performs weddings, and comforts numerous people through sickness and/or death, but he does this without a church building.

For the first ten years after being ordained in May 1966, in fact, Reverend McIlrath — who has been making his home in Sandy Hook for nearly a quarter of a century — worked in North Carolina as an associate pastor, administrator, teacher-counselor, chaplain, retreat director, and pastor.

After that decade of serving the Catholic Church in a traditional manner, the Danbury native returned to the Northeast, first spending one year in Weymouth, Mass., where he earned a nursing home administrative license from the State of Massachusetts, and then moving back to Connecticut, where he continued working as a social worker for the next ten years.

His profession has been to help the senior population of the Danbury area, but he has not left his faith or religious training behind. Since 1980, Rev McIlrath has served as a member of Corpus Christi, what he describes as a “community” of faith. He has been a coordinator for the ministerial faith community since 1995.

“It’s a community without walls,” Rev McIlrath said. “Anywhere someone has a need, spiritually, we can answer the call. ”

Through Corpus Christi, Rev McIlrath assists those who find themselves on the fringe.

“These are people who are not directly related to a church of some sort, but want to feel faith. We try to respond to people who have needs sacramentally,” he explained.

Rooted in a strong Eucharist commitment, Corpus promotes “an expanded and renewed priesthood of married and single men and women in the Catholic Church,” according to the group’s website (corpus.org). The organization is celebrating 32 years of service this year, is one of the oldest reform groups in the Catholic Church, and is, also according to its website, active in reform movements both in the United States and abroad. Rev McIlrath says there are about 60,000 members of Corpus Christi.

“Conservatively, that’s the number I go with,” he said. “Others put it higher, but I like to go with a conservative number because you can at least justify that.”

The ideals of Corpus Christi are not welcomed by all people, and Rev McIlrath acknowledges this. Canonical ministry includes celibacy and prohibition of marriage.

 “Married Catholic priests all over the country are serving in many capacities,” he pointed out. “These are people who are already trained, and already have experience.”

 “We’re not suggesting that every priest get married, not at all,” Rev McIlrath said. “Some people are called to the life of a single person, but that’s not everyone.

“We make the argument that celibacy was not an original law, or mandate, in church,” he went on. “Thirty-nine Popes were married and except John, all of the apostles were married. Many bishops, during the first 1,000 years, were also married.

“Celibacy can be wonderful for those who are called to it. But so many people cannot get ordained because they are called another way.”

Many priests, Rev McIlrath feels, leave the church because of the celibacy issue. Rev McIlrath did not leave the church because of it – he became involved with Corpus in 1980, after all, a full two years before he even met Dianne Wassmann, whom he married in 1984.

“There is absolutely no shortage of priests in this country,” he said. “There are married priests who are no longer recognized because of their [lack of] celibacy.”

Rev McIlrath has found a way to maintain his commitment to the church in which he believes. For years he has been there for people of all ages during times of crisis and happiness.

“I think a lot of people come to us for marital support because in certain dioceses, there are so many barriers preventing them from getting married outside church walls and I don’t agree with that,” he said. “We do weddings on beaches, near waterfalls, on mountains… The world is a beautiful place.

“They keep trying to tell us that ‘church’ is not the building, it’s the people who go there. But then they place restrictions on where a ceremony can be held and I just don’t understand that.”

In addition to his work with Corpus Christi, Rev McIlrath has volunteered for the Danbury-based Association of Religious Communities (ARC), and served as associate chaplain for Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut (2003-04), pastoral counselor for Central Christian Church, Danbury (2003-04).

Serving Others, Always

When Leo McIlrath returned to Connecticut in 1978, he took a job as director for the Department of Elderly Services for the City of Danbury. He worked in that capacity until 2003. During that tenure he directed Danbury Senior Center, Interweave adult day care center, worked with Danbury’s Municipal Agent office, established Danbury’s SeniorNet Computer Center, celebrated the building of Elmwood Hall (the current senior center), and served as president of Connecticut Association of Senior Center Personnel.

In 1980 he returned to school, this time to the University of Bridgeport, to earn a master’s degree in counseling. From 2002 until 2004, he studied with Global Ministries University to earn a master’s in pastoral counseling. He remains a licensed counselor for Connecticut State Counseling Association (since 2002), a representative for Western Connecticut Area Agency on Aging (since 2005).

An adjunct professor at Western Connecticut State University, Mr McIlrath teaches introduction to psychology, which he began teaching in 2004. In the past he led ten sessions of Latin, and two sessions of gerontology within the university’s Graduate Certificate Program.

He has a long list of association with boards, advisory councils and task forces, ranging from being head counselor at Camp Tarrywile in Danbury (1962), director of men’s activities at Danbury War Memorial (1963), chairman of Connecticut White House Council on Aging workshop (1980), and the state representative for the National White House Council on Aging (1990) to serving as co-chairman for Newtown’s Commission on Aging, and chairman for Connecticut Counseling Association for Adult/Aging (2004).

He received of the State of Connecticut Senior Center Director’s Award in 1990, and was honored two years later with the Greater Danbury Law Day Liberty Bell Award.

In 1981, Mr McIlrath joined with Dr Paul Hines and John Simonelli to create The Dorothy Day House of Hospitality, the first emergency food kitchen and the first shelter in Danbury. Today the shelter provides up to 90 hot meals and bag lunches daily, and can provide emergency shelter for 17 guests.

“We all came together — we were brought together — with the same idea,” Rev McIlrath said. “Someone put us together because each of us expressed a similar idea, without knowing each other.”

The Dorothy Day House was never meant to be, as Rev McIlrath calls is, a “rice ministry.”

“This is not a place to preach over meals,” he explained. “People are simply hungry. Let your serving to them be your service. There people are not looking for answers. They’re just hungry.” As a result, there have been times when Rev McIlrath has had “to pull some people aside when they begin proselytizing a little too much.”

Rev McIlrath is also responsible for Unity In Diversity, a cable television program that features leaders and representatives of religious, cultural, and social communities and which airs in 17 towns through two networks, Charter Communications and Comcast Cable. The program is in its tenth year of presentations.

Unity and Diversity emerged while Rev McIlrath was still working at Danbury Senior Center. He saw, he said, that cable would be a good way to get information out in the public eye about different facets of religion. The series was launched by Rev McIlrath and Sam Deibler, the initial and longtime director of ARC, and the two men covered the full spectrum — from Buddhism and Catholicism to Hinduism and beyond.

“We thought this was a good way for people to learn about each other in a nonthreatening way,” said Rev McIlrath, who continued the program even after its co-founder left. “If you could just listen to where a person is coming from — without stress, phobias, or fear — we’re really not all that different. There really is a unity between everyone.”

Rev McIlrath also developed Seniority, a program that aired on Comcast cable stations. During the 40 episodes of that series, Rev McIlrath serviced as producer and host while interviewing municipal agents and other officers that affect the lives of senior citizens.

Leo’s parents, William and Florence (Harmon) McIlrath, lost two children at very young ages. His older brother Joe and youngest sister Rosemary died, each before reaching their third birthday, “of something that could be taken care of in a doctor’s office today.”

The product of a large family, it isn’t surprising to learn that Leo has become the father of his own sizable brood. He and wife Diane Wassmann-McIlrath are the parents of six children: Scott, Jennifer, Brian, Julio, Mari, and Daniel.

Between the family he and his wife have raised in Sandy Hook and those to whom he continues to minister, Leo McIlrath has helped people find their way to happiness and contentment. Through Corpus Christi, and by answering calls from people looking for guidance without strict limitations, Rev McIlrath has found a way to share his faith while also living happily, with his own fulfillment.