Priest, nun say visiting the sick is the Lord's work

An elderly woman clutches a rosary.

A man with his arm in a bright red sling and a cane genuflects with some difficulty before taking a seat.

A young woman sits in the front row holding her Bible.

On this day, it's the second week of Advent and the Rev. John Cantore is about to say his daily 11 a.m. Mass. This is one of his duties as the priest at St. Francis Medical Center.

A nun is sitting in the back row. Her name is Sister Jane Kiefer.

While the number of Catholic nuns and priests has been spiraling down for years, these two are constant figures at the Cape Girardeau Catholic hospital. They go about their work quietly but consistently, doing what fewer seem willing to do.

A week before Christmas, Cantore's message is on the true meaning of the birth of Christ and how commercialism and material possessions are not the meaning of the season.

After the 10-minute sermon, he says the desire for material possessions may have something to do with the decline in Catholic clergy.

"Many will say it is sex," he said. "That we're not married and there's no sex in this life."

Cantore doesn't believe this, however. He has his own ideas.

When he became a priest 38 years ago, families encouraged children who expressed an interest in seminary.

"The family would rejoice and say 'Thanks be to God,'" he said. "Now a child says that he wants to be a priest and the family says, 'You've got to be kidding.'"

Cantore says families today likely would rather see their sons grow up to be like the doctors that roam the halls just outside the chapel than a priest like him who lives at Cape LaCroix Apartments.

"Get some money, some recognition," he said. "That's what some parents might say."

After nearly 25 years of being a priest who taught math at seminaries around the country, Cantore's work has instead lead him to St. Francis. Here, he usually spends six hours a day Monday through Friday quietly visiting patients, saying the Lord's Prayer with them, giving communion or offering a sacrament of the sick. On occasion, he has had to administer what the church used to call last rites.

Cantore said that on some days there are more Catholics in the hospital than he is able to see. While he can usually see about 15 patients, there can be as many as 35 Catholic patients. Hospital officials say the average is 25 on any given day.

"There is enough work for a full-time priest, no question," Cantore said. "But I don't think I can work eight hours a day anymore."

Cantore said he sees as many as he can and then tries to see patients he missed the next day. There is also a part-time Catholic lay minister who helps out.

The lack of priests does have some effect on Cantore. While the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese's official policy allows for retirement at 70, Cantore said he believes the bishop will not allow him to retire when he reaches that age in three years.

"The bishop doesn't have the replacements, that is true," he said. "I may be able to retire at 75."

He chuckled at the thought: "When I joined seminary, I thought I might retire at 65."

Now only two nuns

After the sermon, Sister Jane Kiefer is answering phones in the intensive care waiting room. She has been a nun for 53 years and came to St. Francis in 1976, the year the hospital was moved to its current location at Interstate 55 and Route K.

When Kiefer started, at first in social services, nuns were plentiful at the hospital. Now there are two. Kiefer moved from social services to pastoral care, where she began visiting patients and did so for 13 years.

When her shift ends, she likes to see old friends who are at the hospital.

"You doing better today?" she asks after entering the room of Virginia Pecord, a woman from Olive Branch, Ill., who just had her second stroke.

"I am," Pecord answered. "And I plan on doing better and better."

The woman's daughter, Deanna Hill, said her mother has been in the hospital on several occasions and that Kiefer always visits.

"We're not Catholics," she said. "We're Baptist, but Sister Jane doesn't care about that. It does help as far as I'm concerned because I know this hospital is praying for her."

Hill knows from experience. She had a motor accident in 1986, hurting both legs, and Kiefer came by to visit her then.

"She's like a sister; she's taken care and prayed for all of us for a long time," said Hill, holding the latest "Left Behind" book. "We always want her to know we're here."

Kiefer says the patients enjoy the extra attention.

"I think they very much appreciate it, they really do," she said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137