Deacon Kyle Eller: So long, and thanks for everything

Mere Catholicism 

When my young family was received into the Catholic Church in 2004, on weekends we would often be found in the back row at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary wrestling our infant daughter (who is now in grad school). And often sitting in front of us was a wonderful family. It was impossible not to become friends with the faithful, thoughtful, enthusiastic mother of that family. You know her name: Betsy Kneepkens. 

A year later, when I was hired to revamp the diocesan publication, which became The Northern Cross, I thought highly enough of Betsy, who was working at the College of St. Scholastica, to ask her if she would write a regular column about her journey of faith and family. She’s been in every issue of this newspaper. Definitely don’t miss this last column: It’s one of the best she’s ever done. 

In 2013, I was thrilled when Betsy was hired to direct the Office of Marriage and Family Life, because I thought it would be great for her, great for the church, and great for me to get to see her regularly around the office. I was right. 

Betsy embraced the role. She had not only genuine knowledge and understanding of the church’s teaching on marriage and family, she also had an abiding love for it and firsthand experience of living it and a passionate belief in its profound importance in human flourishing. Along with all of that, I was impressed (and a little intimidated) by her knack for coming up with events and initiatives: conferences and camps and mentor couples and anniversary dinners and so much more. 

I have shared with many people over the years my deep conviction about the need for a ministry for adult children of divorce to bring them healing, but I don’t think anyone has really heard and understood my pleading the way Betsy has. We had finally taken concrete steps earlier this year to discern whether such a ministry could be brought to our diocese. I’ll be forever grateful that someone listened to me about that. 

Betsy embraced her work at the diocese through a life-threatening illness and through other life changes, many of which were shared in these pages over 19 years. 

For me, I selfishly had the blessing of calling out a greeting as she would walk by my office door, knowing she would probably come in and talk with me for a while, whether it was solving all the world’s problems or mulling a personal situation or simply discussing our shared love of basketball. 

But I think my favorite mental snapshot of Betsy is her presenting on the Theology of the Body at the annual Weekend for the Engaged retreats my wife and I have hosted in Duluth since I was in deacon formation. All of her passion for the Gospel and the family, all her love of education and of young people, all her enthusiasm and conviction seem to come flooding out of her in that intimate setting. There’s no faking how genuinely she’s longing, practically begging, for every one of the couples we’re serving to have a beautiful, holy, blessed marriage. 

When I came to work for the diocese 19 years ago, Patrice Critchley-Menor was already a veteran here, leading the Office of Social Apostolate. Her passionate advocacy for 27 years has been in a different critical area of the church’s life — the church’s beautiful social doctrine and especially its call for the church to take seriously its call to work for justice and live out the mission of charity, feeding the hungry and caring for the homeless. She’s also the one you would find traveling to parish halls teaching Catholic social doctrine or scrambling to put together some pre-election presentations across the diocese on Faithful Citizenship, like the ones she just wrapped up in October. 

Patrice’s work has meant ministering in a direct and personal way with people in difficult moments, and also working with a dizzying array of organizations and agencies that do likewise, whether it’s a soup kitchen in one of our towns or cities or a faith-based advocacy organization at the state Capitol. 

All of this and more has given Patrice a unique degree of insight that I’ve often benefited from. If I want to know about an issue in her wheelhouse, whether it’s human trafficking or how a proposed law in Duluth is going to affect the homeless in the city, I know Patrice is not only going to know more about it than almost anyone, and probably have statistics and reports at hand, she’s often also going to know a great deal about the real lives of people experiencing those things and what the challenges are. 

Many times I listened to Patrice report on her work in a staff meeting and learned about issues I didn’t even know were a big problem. 

Patrice is forthright and unafraid to tell you what she thinks. She sometimes reminds me, in the best way, of a union rep giving a stemwinder of a Labor Day speech. After seeking a conversation with her to learn about some issue, I’ve almost always come away with a new insight or perspective, often brought home with a clever turn of phrase that turns the expected on its head — something for which she has a remarkable gift, and which as a lover of language, I appreciate all the more. 

Her effectiveness and service over many years is why, as we reported in these pages last spring, Patrice was honored with the Rosie Award by a Duluth women’s magazine. 

I’m telling you about these two strong, dedicated women who chose to serve the church because their positions in the Pastoral Center, like mine, have been eliminated in a diocesan restructuring, and I thought it fitting to honor them. 

That said, it’s also true I could write similar things about nearly all of the people I’ve worked with at the diocese. On a personal level, I have received so much love and kindness from them that I couldn’t possibly find the words to thank them properly. I can’t help thinking of when my second daughter, Anna, was facing a terminal illness and I was basically living out of her NICU room in Rochester. How grateful I am for their love and kindness and prayers and, when we came home, meals. 

But when it comes to the work of the church? These people are the bee’s knees. They are — and have been, as long as I’ve known them — mission-oriented people who have served with extraordinary generosity and sacrifice, doing a lot with a little, wearing many hats, bearing many burdens, because they love the Lord and his church. Many of them, along with Betsy and Patrice and I, have done it through long and deep suffering and grief. They’re extraordinary, and they often do their work far from the spotlight. 

As for me, I vividly remember being asked, in the intimidating group interview before I got this job, if I wanted it for the living or for the mission. I had to answer “both” — that as a husband and father, of course, I needed to be able to provide for my family — but that my main reason was the mission. (It was the first and so far only time in my life I’ve had two job offers at the same time. I took this one.) 

That dedication was true then and remained true for my 19 years in this role. I wanted to take the skills I had honed as a writer and editor and reporter and put them in service to God, by telling your stories as people of faith, by informing you about our shared joys and sorrows and happenings, and by engaging the issues of the day in the light of faith. 

One of the great blessings about it has been that I was in such a privileged position to meet so many of you. So often, at some diocesan event, I’ve looked around and seen people from every corner of northeastern Minnesota and felt like it was all my parish family. 

I’ve also been privileged to witness so many moments and tell so many lovely stories. Remember that glorious Eucharistic procession on the 125th anniversary of our diocese? I’m blessed that even in the past couple of issues I got to tell a couple of stories that gave me joy to write: Paul Gannucci working so hard to receive his first Communion and those Brainerd Catholics who have started a prayer group for family members who have left the faith. 

I’ve even had a chance to do bizarre stuff, like type out and proofread a whole, long Vatican judicial document in Latin and publish it in the paper. Not many editors can claim that. 

I’ve also tried to share my heart (and my often busy mind) in this space through my column, well over 200 of them. I’ve loved being in conversation with you through that. Recently I heard from a reader who referenced something I had written in March 2021. Even though it was gently critical, I was blown away that someone would remember a newspaper column from more than three years ago. 

One thing I didn’t know was the ways the job would break my heart. I knew about the cross, of course. I knew that, with the communications director side of my job, I could be asked to help the church communicate with the broader public in the midst of difficulty and controversy. 

But I didn’t imagine the scope and duration and intensity of what I ended up facing. I didn’t envision the reckoning the church would face when our state temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases, or that it would be followed by years of bankruptcy proceedings, then be followed by the death of a saintly bishop whom I loved so dearly, which was then followed immediately by Covid lockdowns and a seemingly endless wait for a new bishop. And more. It’s been a ride. 

This was intense, consequential work. It was by far the hardest thing I’ve done in these 19 years, and it’s taken a great toll on me. 

On that note, I feel compelled to express my gratitude to God for one more thing: that during that long reckoning with historic abuse cases, I got to work so closely with, in particular, Bishop Paul Sirba and Father James Bissonette, his vicar general. I’m so grateful because above all I wanted — no, I needed — to do this work with integrity: with honesty and respect for the truth, with prudence, with humility and repentance, with attention to the rights of everyone involved, and most of all with love and care and respect for people who have been hurt. 

Neither Bishop Sirba nor Father Jim were infallible. I wasn’t either. In these intense, often complicated and overwhelming circumstances, no one could have been. But I don’t believe there was ever a day I walked into work during those dark times doubting that those two men were trying their best to do the right thing. I couldn’t possibly have lived with it any other way. 

My rough, back-of-the-napkin estimate, which may be conservative, is that since June 2005, I’ve written at least 700,000 words for The Northern Cross, and likely more. Here are fitting ones to complete them: I’ll see you in the Eucharist. 

Deacon Kyle Eller was communications director for the Diocese of Duluth and editor of The Northern Cross from its inception in June 2005.