A Steady Path
Seton Hall > News & Events Monday, March 30, 2009
by: Al Frank '72
Bishop Manuel A. Cruz’s unfaltering passion for
ministering to the sick traces back to his childhood in Cuba.
On the bookshelves in the office of Bishop
Manuel A. Cruz '76/M.A.T. '80 at the chancery of the Archdiocese of
Newark, is a line of thick medical texts.
These books, along with the portraits on the walls -- of Carthusians
Saint Bruno and Blessed John Houghton -- signal how the 55-year-old
Cuban émigré has combined physical healing with spirituality in his
priesthood, a combination he hopes will be a hallmark of his
episcopate, which began when he was ordained Newark's newest auxiliary
bishop Sept. 8.
With the added responsibility, “this could be the perfect opportunity
to say, `No, I'm too busy,' to continue to help,” said Bishop Cruz.
“But no, caring for the sick is very important and an integral part of
our ministry as bishops,” he said.
Noting that the motto on Bishop Cruz's coat of arms is “Caritas”
(charity), Monsignor Robert F. Coleman '74, J.C.D, rector and dean of
Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, said he is hardly
surprised by the goal. Monsignor Coleman has been the bishop's friend
since they were in seminary together.
“As a first-year college seminarian in the early 1970s here on campus,
in his free time, he worked as an orderly at what was Saint James
Hospital” in Newark, he said.
But Bishop Cruz's interest in medicine likely dates from his youth in
Cuba, where Sister Monica, a nun in the pharmacy of a nursing home,
taught him the catechism.
When Bishop Cruz was 10 years old, Fidel Castro ordered all but a
handful of Catholic institutions closed. Out of a community of nearly
400 Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul only 70 remained in
the country.
Among them was Sister Monica.
“Everyone who knows the bishop knows Sister Monica because she was such
a tremendous part of his life,” Monsignor Coleman said. “Just learning
his faith from this very devoted religious woman, and in the context of
always seeing her caring for those who were sick, is surely where the
seeds were planted.”
Bishop Cruz and his family left Cuba in 1966, when he was 12. After a
year in Miami, they moved to Union City where his father, Juan, a
newspaper reporter in Cuba, worked in a factory. His mother, Caridad,
was a homemaker. Both are now deceased.
Bishop Cruz decided on his vocation at age 15. “When I left high school
my mind was set,” he said. “Seton Hall was the only choice, because of
the seminary.” He was ordained to the priesthood in 1980.
Bishop Cruz's fascination with medicine grew during the 14 years he
spent as chaplain at Saint Michael's Medical Center. Today, no hobby
interests him as much as parsing dense medical terminology and viewing
under his own microscope the countless slides in his collection of
biological specimens.
He has been a lecturer and adjunct assistant professor at the
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, has published
articles in journals, and is a member of the Society of Neuropathology
of New York.
“How doctors think and face issues, how diseases affect the patients,
has given me great insight,” he said. His understanding has enabled him
to serve as a “translator,” deciphering jargon and helping to explain
diagnoses and treatment protocols to families, especially Hispanics who
may have trouble understanding English.
The bishop's bridge-building will certainly grow in an archdiocese with
226 parishes in Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Union counties. While serving
as regional bishop for Union County, he will manage the ministry to the
archdiocese's Hispanics from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican
Republic and many other Latin American countries.
The Hispanic community includes the unemployed lining Anderson Street
in Fairview waiting for a contractor to beckon, as well as parishioners
of Saint Aloysius Church in Caldwell, who recently inaugurated a
monthly Mass in Spanish.
“The undocumented, that is a sorrow, and reminds us how the Church is
our mother, and we have opened our doors wide for them to know they are
safe and don't have to be afraid,” Bishop Cruz said.
And of the parishioners who initiated the Mass in Caldwell, he said:
“They're thrilled to be Americans, and the community took this
initiative to begin this ministry for the second generation. For many,
it is a way to keep the Spanish language alive for themselves and their
children, but in a much deeper way, it is an opportunity to worship in
the language in which they have always worshipped.”
Maintaining ties to one's homeland and cherishing early experiences are
things Bishop Cruz knows a lot about, considering his deep, lifelong
connection to his early mentor.
During his periodic visits back to Cuba, Bishop Cruz said he never
failed to visit Sister Monica until her death in her 90s in 2000. Her
photo now sits on his desk.
“I was the lucky one that got to go to a sister who was making an
incredible sacrifice for the Gospel,” Bishop Cruz said.
“Talking about me is not the real thing. Talking about her is the real
thing.”
Al Frank '72 is a writer based in Parsippany, N.J.
For more information please contact:
Editorial Department
(973) 378-2644
shuwriter@shu.edu
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