Note: Six priests of the Archdiocese of Baltimore who have combined for nearly 300 years of ministry will be retiring July 1. The Review profiles the six as their parishes bid them farewell.
Since his ordination as a priest in 1974, Father Joe Muth said his favorite part of parish ministry has been “suddenly and intimately” connected with people’s lives.
“Somebody gets sick and somebody dies unexpectedly, even couples getting married or having babies baptized, you really get right into a couple’s or a family’s intimate, personal life and you really get to know them that way,” he said of his role as a parish priest. “Whether it’s a joyous occasion or a sorrowful occasion, they don’t know you, but they trust you with their emotions and their feelings and their story.”
As the pastor of St. Matthew, Northwood, and Blessed Sacrament, Baltimore, prepares to retire at the end of June, he reflected on the sense of welcoming his parishes have promoted.
One of his parishioners at St. Matthew, JoAnne Stanton, said that connection drew her to Father Muth. Her children, now 37 and 34, were drawn to the priest as kindergarteners at what is now Cardinal Shehan School, on the St. Matthew campus and which serves that parish and St. Thomas More, and on whose board Stanton serves.
“As a parishioner, I realized that not just my children, but all children were drawn to him. He’s very good at that,” she said.
“He takes people just as they are and is fully engaged with them in their development. I think that’s the meaning of church,” Stanton said. She noted that’s one of the reasons she has stayed active at St. Matthew and has been involved in several ministries – at the parish and citywide, focusing on social justice issues – with Father Muth.
She said that she was initially devastated when she found out he would be retiring as he turns 73 at the end of June.
“I have come to realize that God has another calling for him. In my Catholic faith and in my Christian faith, I have to come to an understanding and acceptance when God calls us to other places and calls people we love to other places,” Stanton said.
She added she will miss Father Muth being actively engaged in St. Matthew, but knows he will continue to do citywide and statewide community work.
Stanton said she and her family were searching for a parish home when her children were young and involved in a lot of Catholic youth activities. They were searching for a more diverse church and she said she found herself and her family more often at St. Mathew than at a traditional Black Catholic church across town.
Father Muth was welcoming and loving to her children, who were not always welcome and respected at other churches, Stanton said. As a school board member at Cardinal Shehan, she still hears those kind of stories from students.
Stanton’s search for a parish came at about the time that St. Matthew underwent a parish planning and development process in the late 1990s, around the parish’s 50th anniversary.
Father Muth describes St. Matthew as a predominantly white parish from its founding in 1949 until 1969. For the next 20 years, it became a parish of whites and African Americans. From that time on, it broadened its welcome to whites, African American, immigrants – especially from Africa – and gays and lesbians.
In the 1990s, the parish leaders recognized and acknowledged the number of immigrant families in the area. “We decided we really had to find a way to welcome people … and then that just became like a hallmark, a banner way that we conducted ourselves,” the pastor said.
“And it’s hard to be that during the pandemic, but that really is a sense of what St. Matthew is all about, making sure people feel welcome.”
He said that in the same way immigrants felt they were not welcomed in America but found a home at St. Matthew, “some gay and lesbian people have been rejected by some parishes or rejected in other ways.” They came to St. Matthew wondering if they would be accepted and welcomed. “And we welcome them,” Father Muth said.
That atmosphere for immigrants led to the creation of the Immigration Outreach Service Center, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
“We have people in the parish from 45 different countries, but with the immigration center, we have helped people with different kinds of immigration questions from 123 different countries,” Father Muth said.
In addition to listening to immigrants’ stories and struggles, the IOSC helps people get the proper information to get a green card, to move toward citizenship or help bring over a family member from their home country. The center also helps with practical information such as where to shop and how to get around the region.
“Many times, immigration paperwork takes such a long time, and so we learn to wait with people and tell them we’re going to wait with them until their process gets completed.
“So many times we’ve had a chance to go down to different places for the ceremony of citizenship, which is always a very moving, touching, welcoming experience for people. And it’s a great accomplishment for people to get to that point and for us to be able to walk that journey with them,” Father Muth said.
During the tenure of then-Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, the Archdiocese of Baltimore started a parish planning process, with some of the meetings of parish leaders held at St. Matthew because of its location.
After those meetings were over, he called together parish leaders from the northeast part of Baltimore to evaluate what they and their people had heard. From that, a group of parishes continued discussions about how to collaborate in ministry. It was originally called the “Northeast Nine” before a couple of the parishes dropped out of the group.
The group is now referred to as the Northeast Catholic Community, and includes St. Anthony’s, St. Dominic and Most Precious Blood, which all work together as the Epiphany Pastorate; St. Matthew and Blessed Sacrament, two parishes that Father Muth has served as pastor since 2009; and St. Francis of Assisi and Shrine of the Little Flower.
For the past 10 years, about once a month the four pastors of the seven parishes meet collaboratively. The parishes have had joint retreats. “We hired a faith formation director and a youth and young adult minister that all seven of us support and encourage,” Father Muth said.
In addition to Father Muth’s retirement, Monsignor William Burke will retire as pastor of St. Francis and Father Michael Orchik will retire from Shrine of the Little Flower. With Father Ty Hullinger, pastor of the Epiphany Pastorate, the Northeast pastors and the region’s faith formation and youth/young adult minister will meet with incoming pastors Father Matthew Buening and Father John “Jack” Lombardi to discuss formation plans.
“They can begin to establish their relationships with these folks and with these parishes so that they see this work and carry on,” Father Muth said.
The pastor has traveled to Nigeria and Rwanda, as well as four visits to Kenya, one of which lasted three months as he participated in a program about African culture and religion, the Maryknoll Institute for African Studies.
He has also visited El Salvador several times, where he got connected to an orphanage, the Community of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, founded by the Diocese of Cleveland in 1980, the year the archbishop, canonized in 2018, died.
A celebration concert for Father Muth that will also mark the 110th anniversary of Blessed Sacrament Parish will feature singer/composer ValLimar Jansen June 5, 7 p.m., at St. Matthew Church, 5401 Loch Raven Blvd. Father Muth’s final weekend at the parishes will be marked with two liturgies at St. Matthew Church: June 26, 4 p.m. and June 27, 10 a.m. Registration required for the concert and Masses due to capacity restrictions. The June 27 Mass will be livestreamed. Parishioners can greet Father Muth after each of the Masses during a reception in the parking lot on Loch Raven Boulevard. Masks and social distancing will be required.
Email Christopher Gunty at editor@CatholicReview.org
Father Joseph Muth
Born: June 28, 1948
Home parish: St. Mary of the Assumption, Govans
Education: St. Mary of the Assumption School; St. Charles (Catonsville) and St. Mary’s (Paca Street); St. Mary’s Seminary, Roland Park
Ordained: May 18, 1974, Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Homeland
Assignments: associate pastor, St. Jerome Parish, 1974-79; associate pastor, St. Agnes Parish, 1979-82; pastor, auxiliary staff to the Vocations Office, 1981, for several years; St. Ann Parish, 1982-89; co-pastor, Blessed Sacrament and St. Ann Parishes, 1989-90; pastor, St. Matthew Parish, 1990-present; temporary administrator, Blessed Sacrament Church, 2009-10; pastor, Blessed Sacrament and St. Matthew parishes; 2010-present
On connecting to people through parish ministry: “It’s just being suddenly and intimately involved in people’s lives with no preparation… and you really get to know them that way. Whether it’s a joyous occasion or a sorrowful occasion, they don’t know you, but they trust you with their emotions and their feelings and their story.”
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