In May 1975, newly ordained Fr. Jerome Listecki greets family and friends at his home parish of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Chicago following his first Mass as a priest. (Photo courtesy of the Catholic Times)
It was a long time they had to kneel on the hard marble floor of the chapel May 14, 1975, as hundreds of their now-brother priests filed past, pausing to lay hands upon their bowed heads.
But Fr. Richard Simon, Fr. Anthony Brankin and Fr. Jerome Listecki (now better known as Archbishop Emeritus Listecki of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee) didn’t mind. This moment of welcome had been a long time coming.
Here in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, the glittering centerpiece of the campus at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary, they and their nearly 40 classmates were becoming new creations — priests of Jesus Christ.
“We really knew it was a change in who you were,” recalled Fr. Richard Simon. “You became a new kind of creature.”
“We were standing on the threshold,” Fr. Brankin said.
For Archbishop Emeritus Listecki, it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. He was finally a priest. “I’ve never wanted to be anything else,” he said. “Never.” And though he celebrates the Golden Jubilee of his priesthood this month, Archbishop Emeritus Listecki is also observing a few other significant anniversaries in 2025.
It is now a quarter-century since he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Chicago (Nov. 7, 2000), 20 years since he was installed as Bishop of La Crosse (March 1, 2005) and 15 years since his installation as Archbishop of Milwaukee (Jan. 4, 2010).
“He’s had just an extraordinary life,” said Fr. Simon of Archbishop Emeritus Listecki, who has been a close friend since the two — along with Fr. Brankin — were young teenagers at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South High School in Chicago. “He’s never overwhelmed by a challenge. He is tireless in trying to advance the well-being of the Church. He really is.”
Between their first year at Quigley and ordination day, the world had changed drastically. The Civil Rights Movement, the sexual revolution and the Vietnam War reshaped national discourse and mainstream culture; the Second Vatican Council reshaped the Church. And as the three young men knelt on the floor of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception that day in 1975, the fallout from those shifting sands was just beginning.
“I think that none of us had any idea what the next 50 years would be like,” said Fr. Simon. “We had no idea the battles we would fight.”
Over those years, “there was a tremendous challenge to the teaching of the Church, and a tremendous challenge to the spiritual life,” Archbishop Emeritus Listecki acknowledged.
Following his ordination, he earned a civil law degree from DePaul University in Chicago (1976) and a doctoral degree in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (1981). He returned to Chicago in 1983, and over the next 17 years he taught at his alma maters Quigley and Mundelein while serving in the Archdiocesan Chancery, as in-house legal counsel for the archdiocese and in various parish settings. But he desperately wanted a pastoral assignment, and so Cardinal Francis George, then the Archbishop of Chicago, sent him to St. Ignatius Parish near the campus of Loyola University in August of 2000. But Fr. Listecki had not been there three months yet when Cardinal George told him the news that he had been named a bishop. He would serve as an auxiliary bishop for Chicago.
Fr. Listecki was shocked, but his classmates were not.
“If anybody was going to be a bishop (from our class), it would be him,” Fr. Brankin said.
His episcopal ordination in January 2001 included an abundance of holy chrism oil — probably due to one of his signature quips.
“The cardinal poured a little of the oil out, and he’s rubbing it into the scalp, and he says to me, ‘Jerry, you have too much hair,’” recalled Archbishop Emeritus Listecki. “I looked up at him — he was partly bald — and I said, ‘Better to be like you, Your Eminence?’ And so, all of a sudden, he turned the bottle over, and all the oil went down into my eyes.”
“It was all over his hair and everything,” Fr. Brankin said with a chuckle. “It looked like he just got out of the shower.”
Just a few years later, he was named as the bishop of La Crosse, succeeding Cardinal Raymond Burke.
Msgr. Joseph Diermeier, Pastor of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Marathon, Wisconsin, recalled his installation Mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph the Workman in March of 2005.
“We were down in the crypt (before Mass) and he came through and was shaking hands with everyone — ‘Hi, I’m Jerry Listecki.’ It was just very informal,” Msgr. Diermeier said. At the Mass itself, which was attended by more than 900 people, Bishop Listecki poked fun at his change in station, recalling how he had been in town back in February of 1995 when Bishop Burke was installed.
“He said that at the time he was coming through on his way to St. Paul with another priest, and they stopped at the Cathedral and thought they could see the installation,” recalled Msgr. Diermeier. “They couldn’t get in because they didn’t have a ticket. And so, he made the comment, ‘Last time I couldn’t even get in the church. Now I’m in the front seat.’”
Bishop Listecki expected to retire in La Crosse until he received a call from the papal nuncio to the United States, the Most Rev. Pietro Sambi, in 2009.
“He told me, ‘Bishop Listecki, I have the great pleasure to announce to you that Pope Benedict has made his decision, and you are the new Archbishop of Milwaukee,’” recalled Archbishop Emeritus Listecki.
His first instinct was to demure from the honor. “I said, ‘You know, I sure want to thank the pope, but there are a lot of other individuals who are far more qualified, who can do a tremendous, good job,” he recalled. “And (the nuncio) stopped me in the middle of my sentence and he said, ‘Bishop Listecki, the pope has made his decision. You are the Archbishop of Milwaukee.’ And I went, ‘OK. All right.’”
The appointment was announced at a Nov. 14 press conference at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, and “the question on everyone’s lips was, ‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’” recalled Archbishop Emeritus Listecki, referring to the many issues facing the archdiocese at that moment in time.
In the homily for Mass held upon his installation as Archbishop of Milwaukee on Jan. 4, 2010, Bishop Listecki chose to reflect on the role of the bishop amidst the context of Peter’s reconciliation with the Risen Christ, who implores him to “feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)
“As a Church we have experienced the devastation of sin and its effect on us personally and as a community,” he said. “We acknowledge that at times, we too have failed to be witnesses to Christ. However, it is only in our true commitment to love that healing can occur and the Lord Jesus may be exalted … It is as if we are standing with Peter and Jesus is asking us: Do you love me more than these?”
The love that Archbishop Emeritus Listecki has for the priesthood, and for the faithful of the Church, is something that has distinguished his service, Fr. Simon said.
“To me, he is a perfect candidate for a bishop,” he said. “Because in his heart of hearts, he’s a parish priest.”
