ST. LOUIS — Allen Boedeker entered the seminary 45 years ago. He graduated in May.
In between, the new Roman Catholic priest got married, raised children and worked as an educator.
“It gives me a much broader perspective in ministry,†said Boedeker, who turned 67 in July.
Like most of his congregants — but almost none of his colleagues — Boedeker, a father of five, has scraped together mortgage payments, helped with late-night homework and listened patiently while quarreling teenagers aired their grievances about each other.
In the Archdiocese of ºüÀêÊÓƵ, Boedeker is the oldest to be ordained and the only one who has been widowed. He is among 180 or so pastors helping the faithful navigate a restructuring that cut parishes in the archdiocese down to 135 from 178, a consequence of the dual decline of folks in the pews and folks on the altar.
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The Catholic priesthood hit a peak in the 1960s, when Boedeker was a boy growing up in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ, attending St. Joan of Arc parish. In 1965, there were almost 60,000 priests in the United States, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Last year, there were fewer than 35,000.
But unlike when there’s a shortage in a professional field such as nursing, recruitment efforts can’t hinge on signing bonuses, benefits packages or flexible hours.
And “recruitment†doesn’t occur, anyway, the archdiocese says. The priesthood is a calling, not a career. There is no goal number of seminarians, said the Rev. Brian Fallon, the archdiocese’s director of vocations: “We desire the right priests,†he said in an email. “Not the right number of priests.â€
Because the Catholic Church limits ordination to men — almost always, single men — it has a much smaller pool to draw from than most other faiths. The practice, according to church teaching, hews to the example modeled by Jesus, an unmarried man who chose other unmarried men as his apostles.
Exceptions are rare, but they do exist.
The Rev. Michael Rennier, father of six and pastor of the Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine in Richmond Heights, was already married when he converted from the Anglican Church and became a Catholic priest. The Rev. Gene Schaeffer, who has grown children, was ordained last year and serves at Ascension in Chesterfield. He is divorced but had his marriage annulled, meaning the sacrament was deemed invalid in the eyes of the church.
‘A natural’
Boedeker, an only child, first felt a tug toward the priesthood at age 11. “It’s up to you,†he recalls his parents telling him.
Three years later, he enrolled at what was known as Prep South in Shrewsbury, a now-closed high school for boys weighing their vocational calls. At 18, he entered the nearby Cardinal Glennon College to earn a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.
It was while he was singing with the seminary chorus that he met a parish organist, a young woman named Mary.
They became best friends. Eighteen months into his studies at Kenrick Seminary in Shrewsbury, Boedeker left. He married Mary, already the mother of two little boys, and finished his master’s degree in theology at St. Meinrad’s in Indiana.
The couple’s connection to the faith deepened as the years went by. Wherever they lived, they immersed themselves in parish life: overseeing religious education, steering recent converts through the tenets of the gospel, praying for the sick and those in need.
“He and my mom were just the epitome of ‘church people,’†said Robert Boedeker, the couple’s third son.
Allen and Mary played a role in raising at least a dozen other children as foster parents. They took in twin girls at 13, and the pair became a permanent part of the Boedeker family. In 1990, all seven settled in ºüÀêÊÓƵ Hills, in a crowded brick bungalow that they decorated with crucifixes, family photos and posters of the Peanuts gang.
For 30 years, Boedeker taught theology to sophomore boys at ºüÀêÊÓƵ University High School. Every day, he went in two hours before classes started to open the doors of the library to early arrivers and prepare for morning Mass.
In 1997, Boedeker was ordained a deacon, serving most of his years at St. Andrew’s parish in the Lemay area of south ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. Catholic deacons assist in the liturgy and take on other initiatives within the congregation.
“He really created the atmosphere of ‘parish as family,’†said Melissa Froidl, herself a third-generation member of St. Andrew’s. “So many years of being a parent undoubtedly enhances what he brings to the table.â€
Blossom Singer, who lives a block and a half from the church, lists Boedeker’s compassion among the reasons she made it through cancer treatment five years ago. He was one of her first visitors after she was diagnosed.
“He will do anything possible to help,†Singer said. “He’s a natural.â€
New pastor, new parish
One Friday in early 2019, Boedeker came home from school to find his wife, a diabetic, slipping into a coma. She died that Sunday.
The loss was a heartbreak but not a shock; Mary had been ailing for years. The couple had talked many times about the future. Boedeker thought he might finish what he had started decades ago, returning to a calling that only one person — Mary, the love of his life — had been able to pull him from.
“She was fully in favor of it,†Boedeker said.
He thought that when he told the rest of his family he wanted to become a priest, it might come as a surprise. He was wrong.
“I found out after the funeral,†he said, “that they were all saying, ‘How long do you think it will be before he goes back to the seminary?’â€
It was a year and a half. He finished that school year, and then the next one. Saying goodbye to his students and the staff was hard but he was not sorry to log off Zoom sessions, after the pandemic forced everyone into virtual learning in spring 2020.
Late that summer, Boedeker moved to Weston, Massachusetts, to attend Pope St. John XXIII, a seminary that enrolls “delayed vocations.†He was the second oldest in his class of eight, but the only one who had previously been a seminarian.
“It was funny being on the other side of the teacher’s desk,†Boedeker said.
In one way, everything was different from the first time around: a new city to navigate, new technology to master, new family members — including 10 grandchildren — to miss.
“This was his first going-away-to-school adventure,†said Carrie Kleen, one of his daughters.
But in many ways, things felt the same as they had decades ago. The faith. The formation. The brotherhood.
On May 27, Boedeker took his place on the altar at the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Cathedral Basilica to receive his holy orders with four other new priests. He was the one with hair as white as his vestments and a wedding band on his finger. Later that same day, he celebrated his first Mass at his home parish.
The congregants listened as Boedeker read a letter from Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski, explaining that as of Aug. 1, St. Andrew’s would no longer exist. Along with three others, it would fold into neighboring St. Mark’s, forming the sixth-largest parish under the archdiocese’s All Things New downsizing plan.
But, Boedeker continued, he would be accompanying them during the transition as St. Mark’s associate pastor. The congregation cheered.
“I’m very happy to be home,†he told them.
He’ll likely move on eventually. That’s life as a priest, and Boedeker — fit and energetic — estimates he has 20 years on the altar ahead of him.
“I go with the Holy Spirit,†he said. “God presents a smorgasbord. As long as you’re looking to him, you’ll be home.â€