Faithfulness, Courage, Sacrifice, Service: Fr. Leonard Klein & His Preaching ~ The Imaginative Conservative

We can give those things God has asked, Fr. Leonard Klein asserted, for "He has not abandoned us; he has given us life and gifts in this place and this time, for this place and time." The attentive reader will find that his sermons are a great aid to thinking through what holy living means for us today—and accepting Christ's life and gifts through the liturgy and prayer.

A Grain of Wheat: Collected Sermons of Fr. Leonard Klein, edited by Christa Ressmeyer Klein, foreword by George Weigel; 338 pages, Cluny, 2022

Like his friend, the late founder and editor of the journal First Things Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Fr. Leonard Klein (1945-2019) was an Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) minister whose roots were among the more conservative Missouri Synod Lutherans and who was influenced by Arthur Carl Piepkorn. The "Pieps," as students knew him, was a seminary professor in St. Louis who viewed Lutheranism as a reform movement in the Catholic Church of the West and urged Lutheran seminarians to be constantly thinking about why they were not in communion with the See of Rome. Like Fr. Neuhaus, Pastor Klein eventually came to the answer that there was no good reason. He entered the Catholic Church in 2003 and was ordained priest in 2006 in the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, ministering there for thirteen years until his death from cancer.

Because of his writings in First Things and elsewhere, I was aware of then-Pastor Klein when I met him during graduate school in 1998. It was at the after-after-party for a conference commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Piepkorn's death. The conference, which included lectures by Fr. Neuhaus, Church historian Robert Wilken (another Lutheran who had become Catholic), and Yale theologian George Lindbeck (who didn't become Catholic but was sympathetic), was held at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side. Present were Lutherans who had become Catholic, Lutherans who had become Orthodox, and Lutherans who were still Lutherans. The third group was itself split between Lutherans determined to stay Lutheran and those leaning toward Catholic or Orthodox.

I was invited to the after-after party by Pastor William Wiecher, a conference speaker and fellow graduate student at Fordham. Held in the apartment of Immanuel's pastor, Gregory Fryer, the party was awkward for me as I had tripped on the sidewalk walking to the conference. I desperately tried to keep the large hole in the knee of my pants disguised. More awkward than that, however, was the conversation with Pastor Klein.

Not the conversation itself, however. A very kind man, he had introduced himself to me, probably the youngest person at the party, and began speaking. If he noticed my pants, he said nothing. Instead, he was interested in my experience as a recent Catholic convert from Calvinism. How had it been? Had I been disappointed? What was I surprised by? He talked about the possibility of conversion for himself but said there were factors he had to think about, including a daughter with health problems for whom he and his wife were caring.

The awkward part came at the end when a woman at the party overheard us talking and assumed Pastor Klein was tempting a pious young Lutheran to fall into the arms of Rome. As she berated him, I tried to explain that I had never been Lutheran and was already Catholic. If there were anybody doing the tempting, it was me. Still miffed, she stalked off. I told him I’d pray for him and moved on to talk to somebody else.

My effort to disguise the hole in my pants came to naught, by the way. In the elevator on the way out, David Lotz, a burly Lutheran historian, stepped in, glanced down, and announced in a Texas twang, "Son, you have a rip in your trousers!" Oh well.

More important was that I hoped I had helped this potential convert. I rejoiced later when I read that Pastor Klein had become an actual convert and then a priest. His occasional Catholic writings continued to enrich me with their wisdom.

Sadly, I never met him again. I rejoiced, however, to see that Cluny Publishers released a collection of sermons edited by his wife of fifty years, Christa, herself a theologian who, after their conversion, went on to teach at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. She chose 65 of her husband's sermons, all but one from his Catholic priesthood, and grouped them into five sections: Advent to the Baptism of Jesus, Lent to Pentecost, Ordinary Time, assorted feast day sermons, and occasional sermons.

Fr. Klein's preaching was not academic or oratorical, but it was smart and boasted a wide range of references. It is no surprise that one sermon is from the vigil service at Fr. Neuhaus's wake. Fr. Klein's homiletic style matched what George Weigel describes in his foreword as Fr. Neuhaus's ideal for preaching: "never talking down, always lifting up."

Like any good preacher, he had an eye on the news to help his parishioners understand how it is that timeless dogmas can light up our times. A familiar theme in his sermons is finding true freedom in Christ and fleeing distorted popular notions of freedom and faithfulness. To that end, he brings in (without geeking out) philosophers such as Kant and Hume.

Ever grateful for the truths he learned as a Lutheran, he uses hymns and theologians from his old tradition not just for criticism but to illuminate truths. He uses poetry from classic English sources as well as from the many selections in the Liturgy of the Hours. And he uses prayers from the Mass, including those from the Traditional Latin Mass, which he celebrated regularly at his Wilmington parish.

As his wife says in her introduction, Fr. Klein's sermons form "a parishioner's enchiridion, a guide for holy living." When he preaches on the news, he neither sugarcoats things nor does he despair. "We can complain about the mess," he preaches in November 2018, but it is the mess into which God has placed us and in which he asks for our faithfulness, courage, sacrifice, and service."

We can give those things God has asked, Fr. Klein asserts, for "He has not abandoned us; he has given us life and gifts in this place and this time, for this place and time." Fr. Klein rose to the challenge in his day. The attentive reader will find that his sermons are a great aid to thinking through what holy living means for us today—and accepting Christ's life and gifts through the liturgy and prayer.

Republished with gracious permission from The Catholic Servant.

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