Monsignor Henry C. Gracz, pastor of the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, ran an inclusive ministry and welcomed everyone to share in the love of Jesus Christ.
It didn’t matter how much they had in their pockets, their race or whom they loved. Gracz advocated on behalf of some of the most marginalized people in the city from the homeless and the poor to immigrants. He was also a welcoming beacon to the LGBTQ community.
Garcz, 84, died Monday afternoon after a battle with cancer. He had been treated for years for kidney cancer and was recently told by doctors that cancer had advanced to his lymph nodes and brain, according to the Shrine.
“We are devastated and brokenhearted, but we take comfort in knowing he was spared of a long, painful decline,” according to a post on the church’s Facebook page. " We pray he is now seated at the table of Christ with the other dearly departed, and that he is free from all pain and suffering. We know you are feeling as raw and anguished as we are.”
About three dozen people gathered at the Shrine Monday night for a vigil as word spread for songs and prayer. There were tears, hugs, readings and remarks by a solemn Father Joseph Morris, who was named priest-in-charge after the terminal diagnosis.
A framed photo of a smiling Gracz was placed in front of the altar, surrounded by the bright lights of candles that were placed there by people who solemnly walked to the memorial, some bowing slightly in reverence, some on their knees and giving the sign of the cross.
Morris told parishioners that he last saw Gracz on Sunday after mass. He greeted Morris by name and held his hand.
Morris gave him the communion bread and they recited “The Lord’s Prayer.” Gracz, said Morris, prayed it perfectly and clearly.
Gracz had wanted the communion bread broken, which Morris explained “wasn’t just saying less host, but refers to Christ broken on the cross for his salvation, a faith statement made so simple.”
“ His eyes were as bright, as blue, as alert as they usually are, but hadn’t been for some days,” Morris wrote in an email. “He was shining like an angel, beautiful. I asked if I could kiss him and he said please, and I did.”
Gracz is survived by his sister, Joan Evaniak ; nephews Mark Evaniak and Dean Evaniak; and nieces Cynthia Kearns (Lance) and Pamela Alexander (John).
Funeral arrangements are Vespers at 7 p.m. Feb. 23 and Funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Feb. 24. Door will open at 10 a.m. for the Mass. Both services will be at the Shrine.
Gracz served in several parishes in the Archdiocese before joining the Shrine more than two decades ago.
In a 2009 article in The Georgia Bulletin, the newspaper of the Atlanta Archdiocese, said Gracz summed up his vocation this way: “A priest, in some ways, is expressing God to His people, and God uses other people to speak to us priests. It’s a dialogue.”
Credit: Kelly Quindlen
Credit: Kelly Quindlen
It was that give and take that endeared the white-haired Gracz to many in this parish and on the streets surrounding the historic downtown church on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, just a short walk from the state Capitol. It is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Atlanta.
Gracz was born in Buffalo on Sept. 27, 1939. After graduating from Canisius College in Buffalo, he studied theology at Christ the King Seminary in the Buffalo area, with graduate work at Fordham University, and the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C , according to The Georgia Bulletin.
Gracz was ordained to the priesthood on May 8, 1965, by Atlanta Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan.
He lived and ministered in Atlanta for more than half a century. His ministry has always included ecumenical and interfaith activities and he was a founding member of the Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta
Laureen Fredella, a former parishioner who now lives in New York, watched Monday’s vigil from London.
“And for many of us, he was placed before us at a vulnerable time when we were broken, hungry, or disillusioned with our Church and were searching for a beacon. I’ll carry him on my shoulder now, as we all will,” she wrote on the church’s website.
Gracz was among spiritual advisers the Archdiocese named to help sexual abuse survivors.
And during services after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Gracz urged people to be compassionate.
“So we, who are a pro-life church, have to listen very carefully to the pains of others,” Gracz said during a mass. “Too much of the movement about life choice has been people at each other’s throats … that can’t be the call that we have in the Gospel, people.”
His ministry of inclusion did not go without criticism from more conservative elements of the faith community.
“It never dissuaded him in any way,” said Kathy Farrell, president of Fortunate and Faithful Families, a ministry that supports the parents of LGBTQ children. “The way he addressed it was to continue to love every single person, even those who didn’t understand.”
Gracz always planned out the weekly church bulletins. In it he always wanted Jesus depicted as He most likely looked. That could be olive skin, black or dark hair and brown eyes, said Kelly Quindlen, the pastoral assistant.
“He would say, ‘I don’t like that artist’s rendering, Jesus looks too white’,” she recalled. He also liked to include works by Middle Eastern, East Asian, African or female artists. “He was always very excited about the artwork. He liked it to be radical and make people challenge their assumptions of who Christ was. Most churches have imagery of Jesus with a huge crown behind him. Henry would say, ‘I don’t want this triumphant king Christ. I want you to find a Christ of the bread lines.’”
In the Facebook note posted earlier this month, Gracz talked about entering palliative care.
“It’s a new journey - one I have never been on, but one we must all take at some point in our earthly lives. I love you all and trust that you are holding me close. As Jesus taught us, death is never the ending - only the beginning.”
Funeral arrangements :
-- Vespers at 7 p.m. Feb. 23.
-- Funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Feb. 24. Door will open at 10 a.m. for the Mass.
Both services will be at the Shrine.
