-- Hundreds of clergy, lay people and other friends and faithful gathered Monday in the Sacred Heart Cathedral Basilica in Newark for the funeral of Archbishop Peter Leo Gerety, who led the state's largest Roman Catholic diocese and until Wednesday was
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Leo Gerety, as he was known, whose parents were from the Greenville section of Jersey City, was born on July 19, 1912, in Shelton, Conn. He died on Sept. 20, 2016 at a church home in Totowa. He was 104.
Gerety led the archdiocese of Newark for 12 years, from 1974 to 1986.
An activist priest, he marched for civil rights in Selma, Ala., protested the Vietnam War, brought Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity to Newark and launched RENEW, an adult small-group spiritual revival movement that spread worldwide.
Some 500 mourners sat, stood and knelt in the cathedral's honey-oak pews, below its intricately detailed stained glass windows.
Priests in white robes, nuns in gray and lay people in black sang "Lift Up the Cross," "Taste and See," and other hymns, listened and prayed in memory of Gerety, who carried the title "archbishop emeritus" for 40 years since stepping down as head of the archdiocese, which includes parishes in Bergen, Union, Hudson and Essex counties.
One of Gerety's successors in Newark, Archbishop John J. Myers, who turned 75 in July and now awaits a replacement of his own to be named, acted as celebrant of the funeral mass. The Rev. Monsignor John E. Doran, the former vicar general of the archdiocese, delivered the homily.
Retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Newark, along with nearly two dozen bishops, attended the funeral.
Gerety, the eldest of nine children, was captain of his high school football team in Connecticut, and held a number of lay jobs, including as a border control agent, before entering the priesthood. And Doran emphasized Gerety's earthly -- and sometimes earthy -- qualities.
Recalling a visit by Mother Theresa to Newark at Gerety's invitation, Doran drew laughter from the otherwise solemn pews. The two were at a local chapel maintained by her order, the Missionaries of Chartiy, when the archbishop, eager to discuss proposed outreach projects, asked the future saint, "Hey, Mother, where can you get a cup of coffee around here? We've got planning to do."
Doran quoted another one of Gerety's religious inspirations, Saint Augustine, who placed himself on the same spiritual plane as his parishioners.
"I am a bishop for you, I am a Christian like you," Doran said. "Archbishop Gerety lived, first of all, well aware that he was a Christian like us."
Gerety's tenure as archbishop was a few years after Vatican II, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, from 1962-65, which included liturgical reforms that to many made the church more accessible to common people.
The program for Monday's funeral included some of Gerety's own words following his retirement as archbishop.
"Now, if I am to be remembered in the history of those places that I have touched in my ministry," Gerety is quoted as saying, "I hope and pray that it will be one who strove with heart and soul, with might and main, to empower our people, priests, religious and laity, to move forward in freedom and joy to implement the imperatives of Vatican II."
Near the close of the service, Myers said, "There is sadness and heartache, but we take comfort and hope that one day we shall see him again and enjoy his company."
The choir then led mourners in singing, "May Saints and Angels Lead You On," as the polished wooden casket bearing Geretys' remains was hoisted up by pall bearers and carried down the center isle of the church. In a procession led by the bishops, the casket was carried down to the cathedral crypt below, where Gerety's body was laid to rest.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.