Michigan parishioners remember a pastor with a gift for building family

Father Brunett knew everyone by name, loved social gatherings, delivered inspirational homilies and was there in time of need

BY TERRY MCGUIRE

The 26,000-square-foot St. Aidan Church is but one reminder today of Father Alex J. Brunett’s 18-year pastorate in the Detroit suburb of Livonia. It was built under his leadership.
More than that, say longtime parishioners, is the legacy of the many lives the future archbishop touched as their pastor. He is remembered today as a priest who knew everyone by name, was there for them in illness, loved to throw social gatherings and gave inspirational homilies.

	Above, the activity center at St. Aidan Parish in Livonia, Mich., is named in honor of their pastor, who served from 1973 to 1991. At left is the spire of the new St. Aidan Church, built during his pastorate. At right, a 28-foot-tall figure of the crucified Christ marks the entrance to the landmark Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Mich., where Msgr. Brunett was pastor in the early 1990s.

“I remember when he said his last Mass here – we were all crying,” said longtime parishioner Suzanne Racey, a part-time secretary under then-Father Brunett and now St. Aidan’s office manager.

Some parishioners in the affluent parish of then-900 households even lobbied the cardinal to keep him at St. Aidan’s. When that didn’t work, some followed him to his next assignment, as pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower parish in Royal Oak, another Detroit suburb.

Pastor of St. Aidan Parish from 1973 to 1991, Father Brunett established or revived a multitude of parish organizations, from the men’s club to the women’s guild to youth and senior citizen groups. Celebrations to honor parish volunteers or bring the parish together became a St. Aidan staple. Father Brunett started a parish travel club, the St. Aidan Cultural Society, which visited faraway destinations including Europe, Hawaii and the Holy Land. He used his fluency in several languages to help guide them.

Also during his tenure, the old church was renovated into a banquet and religious education facility and renamed the “Monsignor Alex J. Brunett Activity Center.”

A ‘motivator’ and friend
Parishioners say their pastor’s enthusiasm for ministry inspired others to volunteer.

“He was a motivator,” Racey said, “and people wanted to do things for him.”

Her husband, Bob, is a case in point. She said the future archbishop once told him: ‘You know, I think you’d be a good usher…’

That was 25 years ago. He’s been an usher ever since.

Racey also remembers the day her husband was diagnosed with cancer. That night, Father Brunett, who had been assigned to the Shrine of the Little Flower by then, was at his hospital bedside.

“There were times (in the following weeks) when I’d come home from the hospital and (Father Brunett) would pull up in the driveway and we’d sit and have coffee,” she said. “It was real comforting.”

Ken Demski, whose late mother, Jean, and late stepfather, Jerry Bixman, were among Father Brunett’s best friends, remembers when his mother went “parish shopping” prior to trying St. Aidan’s.

“She called me one Sunday and said, ‘I met the most wonderful priest and he gave the most wonderful sermon’, and she kept going on and on,” Demski said. About three weeks later, his mother was marveling at how Father Brunett already knew her by name.

Father Brunett later officiated at the Bixmans’ wedding at St. Aidan’s. Their honeymoon coincided with one of the St. Aidan Cultural Society trips, so the couple made that their honeymoon.

“To this day we laugh, ‘Who else had the priest that married you accompany you on your honeymoon,’” Demski said.

Demski and his wife, Mary Ann, also became St. Aidan parishioners and were married by Father Brunett. They later moved to another community 50 miles away, but would return to St. Aidan’s every Saturday for Mass.

Turned parish into a family
Other St. Aidan parishioners from Father Brunett’s time there include Dr. Don Brock and his wife, Kay, who remember how their pastor would piggyback on the door-to-door archdiocesan funding drive to ask families if they had a special need.

Dr. Brock is a onetime Protestant who came into the Catholic Church 11 years ago. He said his wife and Archbishop Brunett were instrumental in his faith journey. The archbishop “was the one who brought the church up close and personal and taught me the bigger meaning of Catholicism,” Brock said.

Kay Brock said the archbishop’s legacy is the “parish family” atmosphere he created at St. Aidan’s. Today, the priests who served under him continue that legacy in their parishes, she said.

When then-Monsignor Brunett moved on to become pastor of Shrine of the Little Flower parish, he took over a mega-parish with a national and controversial reputation – its founding pastor, Father Charles Coughlin, having made the shrine famous through his nationwide radio broadcasts on social issues during the 1930s and ‘40s.

Accused by some of anti-Semitism, the “radio priest,” as he was called, was forced to end his popular broadcasts in the 1940s. But he remained the shrine’s pastor until his retirement in 1966.

When Monsignor Brunett arrived, one of his first actions was to invite the Jewish community to the shrine. Some didn’t accept the invitation. But for those that did, it was a healing experience, said Chuck Dropiewski, former parish minister of education at the Shrine of the Little Flower.

“One of the Jewish speakers (said he) would have … never imagined that we (Jews) would step foot in this place,” Father Pelc said, “but because of (Archbishop) Brunett, we would be welcomed here.”

Monsignor Brunett served the Shrine of the Little Flower from 1991 to 1994 prior to saying goodbye to his native Michigan upon his appointment as bishop of the Diocese of Helena, Mont.