Msgr. Carroll supported marriage, interfaith unity

Msgr. Ralph Carroll would use two watery images from the Holy Land to make a point about marriage to the couples he counseled in Catholic Engaged Encounter – retreats designed to fortify couples before they entered into the sacrament of matrimony.

Msgr. Carroll, who brought Engaged Encounter to the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1975, liked to compare healthy marriages to the Sea of Galilee, a body of water teeming with life and featuring two rivers – one feeding into it, another flowing out.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, noted Msgr. Carroll, was the Dead Sea, which had only a single river running into it and was markedly empty of all life.

“He said, ‘Let this be a lesson to you: If you keep your love to yourself, it’s going to die,’” said Dr. Jim Heneghan, reflecting on his years of parish ministry with Msgr. Carroll after the priest’s Aug. 9 funeral Mass at St. Clement of Rome, the church Msgr. Carroll shepherded for 25 years.

“He reminded us that you have to share (married) love with others, not just with your spouse but with the whole world,” Heneghan said. “It’s how God’s love becomes real to everyone else in the world; through (married) love, others can see the love that God has for each one of us.”

Led firmly but gently

Msgr. Carroll, who died July 23 at age 82, was “a mastermind” at getting his parishioners to use their unique gifts to build God’s kingdom on earth, said Father Joseph Krafft, who served at St. Clement as Msgr. Carroll’s parochial vicar from 2002-07.

Father Krafft, delivering the homily of the funeral Mass, said Msgr. Carroll wholly embraced St. Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” The elder priest’s trademark humility, patience and loving nature became evident when the newly arrived Father Krafft decided to engage in some minor but loud carpentry work in his office. His boss waited a full week before broaching the subject.

He wasn’t angry or hostile, and he didn’t holler at me,” Father Krafft recalled, chuckling. “He just said, ‘Joe, if you ever want to make another change to the building, could you please ask me first?’ That was the way he loved – he would try to understand us first, and then after trying to understand us, he would offer his support and encouragement.”

A priest for 56 years

Born on Oct. 24, 1931, Msgr. Carroll attended elementary school at St. James Major and Our Lady of Lourdes and high school at St. Joseph Seminary. He continued his studies for the priesthood at Notre Dame Seminary and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1958.

Msgr. Carroll began his 56-year priestly ministry as an associate at St. Joseph Church in Baton Rouge and at St. Agnes Church in Jefferson.
 
In 1963 he began a series of assistantships at St. Gabriel the Archangel in New Orleans, St. Joseph the Worker in Marrero and St. Gregory Barbarigo in Houma before assuming his first pastorate at St. Lawrence the Martyr in Kraemer in 1969. Msgr. Carroll returned to St. Gabriel, this time as its pastor, leaving in 1984 to assume his final pastorate at St. Clement. He served at the Metairie church until his retirement from active ministry in 2009.

In addition to establishing Engaged Encounter, Msgr. Carroll also was instrumental in beginning a “Supper and Substance” program of sit-down dinners in which couples witnessed to the role of marriage in their lives, even dedicating money toward the purchase of china and silverware for the bi-annual dinners. At its peak in 2003, the ministry attracted 70 couples.

Msgr. Carroll also worked diligently for racial harmony and religious unity, opening St. Clement Church every October for the annual “Gathering of Choirs,” open to musical groups from all denominations and faiths. He also initiated an annual interfaith service during the Thanksgiving season, hosted alternatively by St. Clement and its neighboring Jewish synagogue – Congregation Gates of Prayer. In a poignant testament to the bond that Msgr. Carroll nurtured between the two communities of faith, the synagogue’s leader and the late priest’s friend of 30 years – Rabbi Robert Loewy – read the first reading, from Isaiah, at the funeral Mass.     

Preached God’s mercy

Speaking during the pre-liturgical Words of Remembrance, Msgr. Carroll’s younger sister, Yvonne Hymel, told congregants that her brother wanted to be a priest from the time he was in third grade.

“The gifts that he received within (his) charism were not things that would call attention to himself,” Hymel noted. “He did not have a silver tongue that caused folks to hang on every word; he wasn’t a published author with lines waiting for him to sign their books; he didn’t have the gift of healing to fill churches and stadiums; and God knows he couldn’t sing,” she said.

“The gift God gave him was (his) quiet, gentle, humble, compassionate heart,” Hymel added. “If you were a sinner afraid of the judging God, you wanted him as that confessor who would bring you to a forgiving, loving God. If you were poor, marginalized, excluded, rejected or in the midst of soul-searing pain, you were blessed to find your way to his office.”

Lifetime evangelizer

Before Archbishop Alfred Hughes led the faithful in a final blessing, Archbishop Gregory Aymond thanked Msgr. Carroll for being “a priest all the days of his life,” noting how he would make rounds to people’s rooms to visit and celebrate Mass during his retirement years at Chateau de Notre Dame.

“As a young seminarian and a young priest, I looked to him as one of those models of priestly ministry,” the archbishop said. “I don’t believe there is anything that the church ever asked of Ralph Carroll that he hesitated (about) or said no to. He was always a man of great generosity, emptying himself.”
 
Yvonne Hymel also observed how her brother never tired of ministering. After becoming briefly separated from Msgr. Carroll during a 2009 shopping trip to buy furnishings for his retirement home, Hymel came upon him, speaking to a salesperson.

“He’s listening to (her) life story and he’s already getting her to come to RCIA at St. Clement. Finally I said, ‘Ralph, focus! (You need) towels, dishes, flatware,’” Hymel said. “He ministered until the end.”

Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].