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From Amish country to St. Mary of the Lake

By Dolores Madlener | Staff writer
Sunday, March 28, 2010

Father Steven Lanza, pastor St. Julie Billiart Parish in Tinley Park, is pictured in the parish center. He reads for pleasure as well as for spiritual and intellectual reasons. (Karen Callaway / Catholic New World)

He is: Father Steve Lanza, pastor of St. Julie Billiart Parish in Tinley Park since 2001. Former pastor of Notre Dame de Chicago Parish. Ordained in 1981.

Youth: He grew up in Dover, Ohio. “It’s a small town 19 miles south of Canton, home of the Football Hall of Fame. Dover is surrounded by beautiful, orderly Amish and Mennonite farms and rolling hills. There was one Catholic church and parish school.” He attended public school and got his religious education in Sunday School.

“Dad is a retired jeweler who owned his own shop in town and Mom was a busy homemaker.” He has a married brother 10 years his junior.

Career choices: He headed first for Northwestern University in Evanston, hoping a political science degree would lead to a career in law, government service.

Then the call: “My involvement at the Newman Center at Northwestern, my home away from home, got me thinking about priesthood. Father John Krump and Father Dick Mueller had a huge influence on my vocation.” Because he wasn’t sure he wanted to enter seminary right after graduation, “I shifted priorities and also got an education degree so I’d have some options.”

While teaching at a Catholic high school in Aurora for a year, he stayed in touch with the rector and vice rector at Mundelein, “as the whole discernment process firmed up.”

Spreading the Word: During his various parish assignments, he has focused on evangelization. An author and co-author of text books in the “Faith First” series, he’s also co-authored a resource series for RCIA participants and is working with staff member Franciscan Sister Gael Gensler on an online RCIA resource called “Apprentices in Faith.”

A parish’s next step: St. Julie’s is hosting the “Catholics Come Home” formation series. What’s next after the TV commercials? “The way people check out a parish is by going to a Sunday Mass. If the atmosphere is warm and welcoming, the liturgy done with dignity in a way that speaks to people … and the other parish services meet their needs, then they’ll be returning.”

Leisure: “I like to cook. This is St. Julie’s ninth year doing a St. Joseph Table. We usually serve about a thousand people and it’s all homemade.” He was stirring the sauce March 21, “we make at least 80 gallons,” and helped with the meatballs. But his signature Italian recipe is “a chicken sausage dish cooked in a skillet on top the stove.” He says he learned to cook out of necessity as a bachelor in Aurora, with the help of beginner cookbooks from his Italian “chef” mother.

His current reading includes Cardinal George’s book, “The Difference God Makes.” “I’m sifting through it, bit by bit.” For escape reading, he’s started Robert Harris’ “Conspirata,” set in ancient Rome.

Favorite saint: “St. Paul, because he was a hard worker, always out there spreading the Good News, established a lot of communities, did missionary travels and he knew from the inside out what conversion was because he had experienced it himself in a very dramatic fashion.”

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