Richard Henning

Archbishop Richard Henning has been surprised by his own life more than once. Three times a call has come from Rome, and by his own account he never saw any of them coming, least of all the one that sent him to Boston. He said plainly that he was not worthy of it, and that he had no illusions about replacing the cardinal he followed, only about following him. What he falls back on instead is simple enough to say out loud: love the people in front of you and do the job in front of you.

Steady and humble, he is a priest people tend to describe by his manner before his credentials. The bishop who formed him called him a wise pastor and a gifted theologian, and the cardinal he succeeded said he arrives with the heart of a pastor, but Henning prefers a plainer introduction. Preaching at his own installation, he skipped the vision and the program and told a full cathedral what he thought they most needed to know about him, that he is a believer, a human being, and a sinner who needs grace like everyone else. He is the oldest of five, the son of a New York City firefighter and a nurse, and he says his vocation was born at home, with two parents who both chose lives spent on other people.

He knew early, and it came without much ceremony. A priest visited his fifth grade class on Long Island to talk about vocations, and at recess a few of the boys said they were thinking about it. The others moved on, he says, and he did not. By eighth grade he was working in his parish rectory, with priests at the family dinner table often enough that the life never looked strange to him. He studied history, entered the seminary, was ordained in 1992, and spent much of what followed teaching Scripture, long enough that he used to joke to his nephews that he was in the 27th grade. His first parish taught him something the classroom could not. He arrived barely able to say hello in Spanish, and four women who worked as housekeepers spent a year teaching him the language, and he has stayed close to Spanish-speaking communities ever since.

Away from the work, he is happiest near the water. He spent his boyhood summers on a small island in the Great South Bay where his family has gone for generations, sailing, kayaking, and fishing, and he has never really left it behind. He still calls the sea his happy place. It is where he goes to think, and where he finds it easiest to pray. Usually there is a dog with him. Agnes is a yellow Labrador he has had for years, named after the patron saint of his old diocese, placid everywhere except near a Frisbee on a beach. He says she is good for him, because you cannot be anxious around a dog without making the dog anxious too. After more than thirty years of priesthood, the lesson he keeps coming back to is not a complicated one. The hardest part, he says, and the most important, is learning to trust God enough to hand yourself over.