Winslow Cilfone
December 10, 2012
Father Hugh Cleary:
Stonehill College has gotten considerably bigger. Its student body has increased, it’s gained new residence halls but it’s still maintained the same charm it had when it opened its doors in 1948. Reverend Hugh Cleary, C.S.C first fell in love with Stonehill while he attended the college as a seminarian.
The school has changed a lot since Father Hugh graduated in 1969, but it was his passion for learning and his love for the campus that brought him back to Stonehill when he was hired as the Director of Campus Ministry in 2011.
I had a chance to sit down with Father Hugh in Campus Ministry on a cold and overcast morning this past week, but despite the weather outside he was smiling his signature smile that he is known for on campus and invited me into a lounge so we could begin our interview so that I could get the chance to learn more about the man who had worked with two popes and had an experience with the devil.
“I was born in New York, New York City, Queens, New York. I have one sister, older, two years older, and one brother, 10 years younger,” said Father Hugh.
Father Hugh went to the Holy Cross Brothers High School in New York. It was here that he was first introduced to the Holy Cross Order. He knew from a very young age that he wanted to become a priest, but his parents weren’t as excited.
“My mother thought I should be married and I would have a more fulfilled life, and my father thought that I should get into public service of some sort but we were a Catholic family, you know, mass every Sunday,” said Father Hugh.
Despite his parents’ wishes, Father Hugh knew he wanted to become a priest and began seminary here at Stonehill College.
Seminary at Stonehill wasn’t a breeze. The seminarians had to sit in the back of classrooms and were prohibited from speaking with the other students. After evening prayer the seminarians would be on what was called “Grand Silence” in which they couldn’t even talk to each other until after breakfast the next morning.
Father Hugh would spend his free time playing sports with the other seminarians. “Soccer. I used to run a lot, and some baseball,” said Father Hugh when asked what sports he played in college.
The seminarians would take a yearlong retreat after one year at Stonehill called a “novitiate”, which resembled life in a monastery for the young seminarians. “We had milking cows, and pigs, and corn and apples. We just stayed on the property and sold the produce downtown,” said Father Hugh.
The experience was really meant to establish whether or not the seminarians had a future vocation within the priesthood. The year away from Stonehill only confirmed Father Hugh’s desires to become a priest. After a year of novitiate, the seminarians returned to Stonehill and took temporary vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Father Hugh then graduated from Stonehill in 1969.
Father Hugh went to the University of Notre Dame after graduating Stonehill for his masters in theology. The second Vatican Council had occurred and things had become less strict for the seminarians. “We didn’t have to wear our cassock anymore. We could wear regular clothes. We could talk to the students. We could socialize more,” said Father Hugh.
After Notre Dame Father Hugh was ordained a priest and assigned to the Holy Cross Parish in South Easton for two years. “I loved it. I would say that taught me how to be a priest more than anything.”
After receiving masters in counseling psychology from Loyola University, Father Hugh began his work with the poor. “We set up this program, and we went to Our Lady of Good Council Parish in Brooklyn,” said Father Hugh.
It was a very dangerous and tough area. Father Hugh was there for 10 years, and although it was often frightening Father Hugh said that it was the best education he had ever received and the best experience of his life.
“When we started, there was a big blackout in New York City at the time. There was a policy of containment. People went on a rampage, and they were burning places down,” said Father Hugh.
Regardless of how frightening or difficult it may have been for Father Hugh to work in this area, he never gave up and constantly worked to make it a better place.
Katie Strout, Co-President of the Moreau Student Ministers believes that this is Father Hugh’s most admirable quality.
“I admire his ability to care and love for everyone he encounters. He always introduces himself to everyone and is genuinely interested in who they are and what they are doing,” said Strout.
Father Hugh then earned his PhD in spiritual formation at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and was assigned to become the novice director in Colorado where he ran the novitiate.
This is where Father Hugh met Father Stephen Wilbricht, an assistant professor of Religious Studies here at Stonehill College. Father Wilbricht was a novice at the time and has known Father Hugh ever since those days at the novitiate.
Father Hugh takes his religion seriously as his novices soon learned.
“One of the things he used to get mad at us for was dancing. He did not believe that any novice should be seen dancing. So, even if we’d be alone singing and dancing to music, Hugh would chastise us for our inability to follow,” said Father Wilbricht.
Afterwards, Father Hugh was elected Superior General, the representative of all the Holy Cross Fathers in the world. Father Hugh spent 12 years in Rome at the Vatican. During this time he met both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
“John Paul was a real extrovert and would meet people all the time. During the week he would have his own private mass up in his residence, and he would invite people to that all the time. Benedict is more personable. When you do meet him one on one he spends more time with you. He is very spiritual and very gentle, and he has got a reputation out in the world, the media has really done a disservice to him.”
One of the biggest obstacles that Father Hugh has had to face in his life as a priest is that of loneliness. “You have to learn how to live alone, and in a way you make a movement from loneliness to solitude,” said Father Hugh.
Father Hugh found himself facing a time of solitude when he was on a retreat in New Mexico with only one other individual, the guest master. While on a walk in the desert Father Hugh saw a dark, shadowy figure on the small mountain off in the distance.
Father Hugh’s wave wasn’t reciprocated but he could feel the gaze of the man as he continued with his walk.
The guest master explained that it may have been a brujo, or demon of the desert.
After this experience Father Hugh met a hiker who often hiked the desert.
Not long after meeting this hiker, the man became lost while on one of his hikes. While searching for him with the Sheriff, Father Hugh looked up and saw the dark, shadowy figure on the mountain once again.
The hiker was discovered on the third day of the search with multiple broken bones. He had frozen to death.
“Every Lent there is a gospel story of the temptations of Jesus in the desert and I tell that story and say how things like money is wonderful but it can destroy us, pleasures of life are wonderful but they can destroy us, power is great but it can destroy us,” said Father Hugh.
“So, that’s like maybe meeting the devil,” said Father Hugh after explaining the story of the hiker and his death.
Father Hugh began his career as a seminarian here at Stonehill, and after meeting two Popes, traveling the world, and seeing the devil he has returned back to his alma mater.
Senior Stephanie Allen has only known Father Hugh for a few months but she already has a very positive view of him.
“I think that Father Hugh is a very genuine person. He is always smiling. You can tell he appreciates Stonehill and the students. He likes getting to know people and hearing what they have to say,” said Allen.
It is this appreciation of Stonehill that is at the roots of Father Hugh’s next goal.
“I love my faith, and to me it just means everything to me. It enriches my life. And, I can’t imagine living life without a relationship with God’s love. And, somehow or other I feel the culture here at Stonehill is more secular rather than faith oriented,” said Father Hugh. “I want to help the faith grow here at Stonehill.”
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