Priest who helped Newtown heal after Sandy Hook hits 50-year milestone

NEWTOWN – It has taken 50 years as a priest – and half of that time here where the Sandy Hook tragedy brought “unimaginable crisis” – for Monsignor Robert Weiss to boil down his advice to the next pastor to two words.

“Be present,” said Weiss, who at 76 has eight months left at St. Rose of Lima until he enjoys the sunset of retirement. “Sandy Hook showed that you don’t always have to be saying something or doing something, but you do have to be there for the people.”

It’s easy enough to say for a veteran spiritual leader whose ministry here and in prior assignments in Bridgeport, Stamford, Monroe and Shelton have been marked by community-building, but Weiss said it’s the only way he has ever known.

“We were fortunate that Fulton Sheen was the bishop in Rochester (New York) when I was in seminary after Vatican II, when all these things were changing,” Weiss told Hearst Connecticut Media during an interview on Friday, one day after the 50th anniversary of his ordination. “And Bishop Sheen said, ‘Don’t sit in the rectory waiting for the doorbell to ring – be a part of your community; not just your church.’”

The year Weiss graduated from seminary in 1968, “so much was going on with sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and the assassination of the Kennedys and (Martin Luther) King that a lot of men in the church were leaving formation,” Weiss said of his early years studying to be a priest in upstate New York. “I had to constantly question myself, ‘How am I going to keep the message of Christ alive in the midst of all this?’”

The answer for Weiss was to say “yes” as much as possible.

“Community building has always been important to me, and when Sandy Hook happened, we really saw the extent of all the community coming together with incredible power,” Weiss said. “We all are gifted with something that we can use to build up community, because that is what the Lord intends for us.”

Bridgeport Bishop Frank Caggiano praised Weiss’s legacy of spiritual leadership, noting that his “long antecedent of ministry that prepared him to serve so memorably in a time of unimaginable crisis.”

“Monsignor Weiss will perhaps forever be defined by his pastoral and personal response to the loss of 26 lives in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on Dec. 14, 2012,” Caggiano said. “When the eyes of the parish, the town and the entire nation were on him, he brought great grace, faith and strength and to all those staggering from the unthinkable. Most importantly, he gave face to the power of faith and its ability to transform lives, even in our darkest moments.”

To mark Weiss’ 50th year as an ordained Roman Catholic priest, well-wishers were planning to toast him during a dinner celebration Saturday at Danbury’s Amber Room Colonnade, and parishioners will celebrate his milestone at a 1:30 p.m. Mass and a 3 p.m. reception Sunday under a tent on St. Rose’s Church Hill Road campus in Newtown.

“Monsignor Weiss has a special way of drawing people in,” said Jeff McKenzie, a longtime parishioner, in a statement. “I think his gift is to connect Catholic belief to our daily life.”

Caggiano agreed, saying, “throughout his priesthood (Weiss) has formed a deep bond with parishioners and served as a true spiritual father to many.”

“His ministry has been one of accessibility, engagement and sacrificial giving that has brought people closer to Christ,” Caggiano said.

God’s call

Weiss, who grew up in Florida, was nearing the end of high school and was thinking about becoming a priest – a process of prayer and reflection known in the spiritual life as discernment.

In those days of the early 1960s, Weiss recalled, there were not a lot of people his age going to college. They were joining the service or getting jobs or getting married. Weiss had already applied to a teacher’s college in South Carolina.

He was walking across his high school campus in Orlando and something happened as he passed his parish church.

“I heard this voice say to me, ‘be a priest,’” Weiss said.

Although Weiss likes to joke about that moment, saying that he stopped walking that route after that day, he couldn’t get the impression out of his head. When Weiss spoke to a priest three days later, the priest told him to take the inspiration seriously.

Weiss said he’ll never forget the first time he celebrated Mass as a priest.

“It was an unbelievable feeling after nine years of formation to stand at the altar all by myself for the first time, and to speak the words of consecration – it was an incredibly powerful moment,” Weiss said. “I knew that from this moment forward, I had the opportunity to do that every day.”

In his assignments at St. Andrew in Bridgeport, Trinity High School and St. Leo in Stamford, St. Jude in Monroe, St. Joseph in Shelton and St. Rose in Newtown, Weiss drew more and more inspiration from the example of everyday people living good lives.

“The more that you are involved in the lives of people the more you see the goodness, the power of faith – and it is impressive to see how many lay people are working to grow their faith,” he said. “I have been heavily influenced by the witness of other people.”

Had he not left the rectory to be with the people, Weiss said, it could have been a lonely 50 years.

“That is what the lord himself did – he walked the streets, and he went where the people were – and that is what we are called to do,” Weiss said. “Sitting in the rectory waiting for the doorbell to ring doesn’t work anymore. Jesus was never sitting in the temple. He was out with the people, listening to their needs.”