Aug. 13, 2014

By Deacon Kevin Mastellon
Staff Writer

Watertown -  Gone fishin’   is a great cliché. It can be applied to everything from taking a single day off from work to retiring. 

In Mike Wagner’s case it would have made perfect sense as he leaves a position he has held for 37 years.
“I used to like to fish,” Wagner said, “then in 1988 I bought Michelle a horse.  In 1991 we bought a farm because it was cheaper to make a mortgage payment than to board three horses.” Now they have nine.

Just retired from his job with the Diocese of Ogdensburg, Wagner is headed for the barn - a barn in Woodville, that is home to nine Arabian and national show horses. He and his wife Michelle will now concentrate all their attention on their horses.

The job Mike Wagner has left is currently described as associate director of the Department of Christian Formation of the Diocese of Ogdensburg and regional director. He is responsible for the Watertown Regional Center of the Department of Christian Formation. He has led that office since 1979.

That is his current title.  The job, Wagner notes, has carried various titles and responsibilities over these many years but the work has remained essentially the same: “serve the parishes.”

That is what he was told to do when hired in July 1977 and it is the “mantra” he has followed ever since.

Highly educated educator
Wagner attended Buffalo Catholic Schools and then entered a seminary in Montour Falls staffed by the Atonement Fathers. He professed his vows as a Franciscan brother at the order’s novitiate then located in Saranac Lake.

He went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in American history and a master of arts degree in theology from Catholic University.

Wagner returned to his native Buffalo in 1973 and earned another master of arts in religious studies while teaching religion at the high school level in the Buffalo Catholic school system.

A career begins
He soon found his career path in religious education.

Wagner was hired by a parish in Spring Brook, NY to direct the parish’s program.  A few seminarians from nearby Christ the King Seminary participated in the program as teachers. 

Among them were some men Wagner would later encounter as they led their own parish communities as pastors…fellows named Alan Shnob, Don Robinson and Harry Snow from the Ogdensburg diocese.

Wagner said he wasn’t certain where Ogdensburg was when he struck out for an interview with then assistant director of the Religious Education Department, Father. Dennis Duprey.

“I left Buffalo on the first day of the Blizzard of ’77.  I drove back to Buffalo on the third day,” Wagner said.
Wagner recalls that Father Duprey was so impressed with the accomplishment he said “we have to hire him.”

Memories, achievements
The 37 years on the job has created plenty of fond memories and achievements.

“Part of the reason I have stayed here so long is the people and the direction I was given when I was hired, ‘serve the parishes,’’ he said. “So I have gone in and not told people what they should do but have asked them what can I do to serve them.

“I think any degree of respect I have received is due to that approach to my work,” he said.

There have been occasional disappointments.

He has found it difficult  “when there is a pastor change and you see a program that you have spent years to help build, fall apart,” he said. “The good thing is in a parish where we have not been able to accomplish much, a new pastor arrives and says, “yeah, you can help.”

On the national stage
And Wagner has helped, not just in the parishes but on the national stage as well.

He served on US Conference of Catholic Bishop’s National Advisory Committee for Adult Religious Education for seven years.  That committee was responsible for the draft of Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us. 

Published in 2000, the document is the bishops’ pastoral plan to help Catholics advance in their role as disciples.  It addresses the need and direction for adult faith formation in the United States.

Wagner was also actively involved in the creation of materials for use by parishes in the nation on Catechetical Sunday for three years. 

His work with the National Conference of Catechetical Leaders from 2008 to 2014 earned him the organization’s Distinguished Service Award in 2011 at the national convention in Atlanta.

Looking ahead
Wagner is enthusiastic about the Church but he has frustrations about a lack of family involvement in the training of children in the faith, a decline in the number of people willing to come forward to be trained as catechetical leaders in the parishes and the overall decline in Mass attendance particularly when children are kept away from Church.

“They have to learn to practice their faith”, Wagner said. “And by practicing their faith they will come to know Jesus.”

Michael Wagner’s last official day on the job was during the first week of August. Michelle has also retired. She was most recently finance director for the Sisters of St. Joseph in Watertown.

Wagner’s final task, he says, was to take down the screen saver from his computer.  It is a picture of one of Michelle and Mike’s prize national show horses, Revelation.  The horse on the screen is of a much younger two time national champion. “He is all white now”, Wagner quips.

Revelation and the champ’s stable mates await full-time attention out in the Town of Henderson…in Woodville. 
From now on, that’s where you can find Michael Wagner.

Photo by Kevin Mastellon
Michael Wagner retired earlier this month after working for the diocesan Department of Christian Formation since 1977.  He and his wife, Michelle, will now devote their full attention to caring for their nine Arabian horses.