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Mourners pay respect to Archbishop Roach
by Art Hughes, Minnesota Public Radio
July 15, 2003

Archbishop Roach died of heart failure Friday at the age of 81. His body is dressed in gold-colored vestments and wears a shawl-like white pallium made of pure lambswool which was bestowed on him by the pope when he became archbishop in 1975. (MPR Photo/Art Hughes)

After a short prayer service family members, longtime friends, Catholics and admirers filed passed Archbishop Roach's open coffin at the foot of the altar at the Cathedral of St. Paul on Tuesday. Minnesota Public Radio's Art Hughes talked to several those attending the viewing about their remembrances of Roach.

St. Paul, Minn. — The youngest of Jan Krocheski's four kids was five years old when Archbishop Roach gave her a job in 1978. She was to direct the Respect Life programs which deal with the church's position on issues such as abortion, nuclear war and the death penalty.

Roach allowed Krocheski to work out of her home so she could also take care of her kids.

"That was really, really remarkable in 1978," she said. "Remember there weren't computers. Nobody had e-mail. Nobody had faxes. It took a lot of manipulation and a lot of caring to be able to allow me to be a working mom. It was always clear between the two of us that my children and my husband, Tom, were my priority. It's a great loss. A great loss. He was a wonderful, compassionate man."

Krocheski worked for Roach for 17 years.

Jan Dalson, with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, says her esteem of the archbishop grew after his arrest for drunk driving in 1985.

"I so admire him for not taking the legalistic way out, but saying 'I did it' and taking the consequences," she said. "Both the pain and the liberating influence that was in his life to be able to identify with people in their humanness had problems and were able to face them and deal with them. And I felt for him both as a person and his role at the time."

Dick Moudry , a retired priest of Christ the King Catholic Church in Minneapolis, attended seminary school with Roach. He says the archbishop helped hold the archdiocese together following the revisions of the church code known as Vatican II, which pitted traditionalists against reformers.

"One of the wonderful things about Archbishop Roach was even though he may not agree with every little thing you might do as a pastor, in the long run he was there for the basic direction the church was going and he didn't close down initiatives and new ideas. He stepped back and let things happen. When you look at Archbishop Roach in his coffin here, I just pray what he stood for won't get snuffed out or turned back; that Vatican II will somehow be revived and continue to grow. And he stood for that and other people did not," according to Moudry.

Archbishop Roach died of heart failure Friday at the age of 81. His body is dressed in gold-colored vestments and wears a shawl-like white pallium made of pure lambswool which was bestowed on him by the pope when he became archbishop in 1975. His funeral is Wednesday afternoon at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

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