Former Cape resident tells about life on the air as a priest in new book

Monsignor Harry Schlitt decided he wanted to become a priest when he still was in grade school at St. Mary's in Cape Girardeau.

He'd seen a movie about the work priests were doing in Africa and wanted to join them.

"If you want to do something to help people in your life, being a priest is a good way to go," he recalled being told. "Since you never have to go to work, people come to you."

And 52 years later, he'd found that to have held true.

Schlitt recently published a book about his life as a priest on the air, working in several media. The book's title, "I'll Never Tell; Odyssey of a Rock & Roll Priest," is pulled from the title of a TV/radio show he hosted earlier in his career.

After heading off to seminary school at 13 for eight years of training and serving for a time in Rome, he ended up in Springfield, Missouri, where he worked as a guidance counselor.

One of the children he counseled had a father in radio, who invited him to come on-air.

Before long, he ended up with a show, "I'll Never Tell."

The show was somewhere between an advice column and the confessional. Anonymous callers would phone in, explain their problems or situations and ask Schlitt for guidance.

He later moved to San Francisco to help establish a communications center for religion and later toured the world with the Armed Forces Radio Network, doing much the same work he'd done as a guidance counselor and radio host.

"I didn't proselytize and say, 'Jesus Christ will save you' and talk Scripture," he said. He instead focused on basic morality.

His aim was to be accessible, and the military had told him what they needed was someone to help regular soldiers find better ways to think about everyday interactions with others.

"A lot of it was just talking about, you know, don't steal, don't cheat, that kind of thing," he said.

Over the course of his career, he said he's received all sorts of calls on and off the air.

"The most difficult ones are when you feel like someone's life is in danger," he said. "Some talk about suicide. ... Kids caught in a crime and who don't know how to get out of it."

Others, he said, have been lower-risk but still important.

"Those are about relationships," he said. "'Should I get married?' That kind of thing."

He returned to Cape Girardeau over the weekend to officiate the wedding of his grand-niece. He said it's always a treat to come home and see what's changed.

"I have a great love for Cape Girardeau," he said.

He said, however, he soon would be back to work, since just as he'd been promised, people haven't stopped seeking his counsel yet.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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