Msgr. Giroir's priestly mantra: Just serve others

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Msgr. Frank Giroir manifests his love for God with the white collar around his neck and his love for Archbishop Rummel High School with his chaplain’s Jupiter-sized 2019 state football championship ring on his right hand, almost big enough for any daily communicant from Jesuit High School to see the neon red “R” from the back row of St. Anselm Church in Madisonville.

If ever there was a priest who wore his faith and his emotions on his sleeve, it is Msgr. Giroir, a 1973 Rummel graduate who says after his 1981 ordination he learned how to actually serve as a priest by observing and watching the veteran priests he revered. In a football sense, he pored over scouting videotapes of such titans as Msgr. Francis Boeshans and Msgr. Gerard Poche to learn the most effective ways to serve the people God had entrusted to their spiritual care.

As in football, the fastest way from Point A to Point B may not be a straight line. And, in any case, everyone knows how God writes straight with crooked lines.

A mentor’s simple lesson
Take stewardship, for example. Much has been written, with every good intention, about the spiritual values that underpin Christian stewardship – that everything we have is a gift from God and that we are asked to return that generously to God.

To this day, Msgr. Giroir, who will turn 69 next month, said the best stewardship lesson he ever received as a priest came from the late Msgr. Poche, who played golf with parishioners and fellow priests two to three times a week.

“Msgr. Poche told me, ‘Frank, stewardship, bull!’ You give service, and you never ask for a dime!’” Msgr. Giroir said. “That mantra has taught me more than the eight years I was in the seminary, and I’ve lived by that.”

The idea, Msgr. Poche explained, was that if a priest was ready at all times to respond to his parishioners in need, they would never forget how their pastor went out of his way to answer those late-night calls to anoint a dying loved one in the hospital or to provide a warm welcome to someone who may have been sacramentally rebuffed by another priest or parish.

“They will respond because of what you did for them when they really needed you,” Msgr. Giroir said. “That’s the whole philosophy I’ve lived by, because that old man taught me more than I ever learned in the seminary.”

Msgr. Giroir stressed that this is not a transactional philosophy of priesthood, but merely an extension of the person a priest should be.

Be available, 24/7
When the newly ordained priest was assigned in 1981 to Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in New Orleans East, he served for three years under Msgr. Boeshans and received a master’s course in how to serve: First, throw out the textbooks. Second, be there to answer any call.

When Msgr. Giroir received his “red coat” as Archbishop Rummel’s alumnus of the year earlier this month, he wanted the current students to understand how living a life for others has become so fulfilling.

“I told the boys, ‘Listen, I’m going to tell you some things, and some people might say I’m bragging, but I’m not bragging. If I didn’t have the foundation I received at Rummel, I wouldn’t be standing on this stage today, and I thank God for that,’” he said.

His first anointing
The first person then-Father Giroir anointed as a priest was in the ICU at Methodist Hospital. When Father Giroir got to the hospital, he was met by a Methodist minister who brought him over to the Catholic patient’s bedside.

“The Methodist minister yelled at the doctors, ‘The priest is here, and he’s going to do more good than you’re doing!’” Msgr. Giroir said. “The doctors looked at me like I had the plague, and I said, ‘I didn’t say that!’ I could only anoint his feet because they wouldn’t let me get close to the guy after that.”

After the anointing, the young priest went out to visit the patient’s family in the waiting room.

“His own doctor came out and said, ‘Father, this man’s not going to live through the night. He’s had heart trouble, and we’ve been dealing with this for years,’” Father Giroir said. “Well, he wound up living for five years. What a grace-filled moment – the first person I had ever anointed as a priest lived for five years. That taught me that what I’m doing is bigger than me. The only reason it happened was because of God.”

Msgr. Giroir said that experience helped him put the mystery of the Eucharist into perspective.

“I can’t change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ,” he said. “I know God is doing that.”

Not long after that, Father Giroir was called to the hospital to anoint a young mother, in her 20s, who was dying of cancer. He had anointed her three times in the previous two weeks because she was so close to death.

“I had a rushed day because I had Mass that day,” Msgr. Giroir said. “As soon as I said the prayers and said ‘Amen,’ she died. The doctor just pointed at me and said, ‘She waited for you to die.’ I told the guys, ‘You never forget those moments in your priesthood.’”

In the midst of grief
And, then, there was the time Father Giroir was called to a parishioner’s home, where the police had already been dispatched.

“We went into the bathroom, which was white tile, and he had committed suicide,” Msgr. Giroir said. “After the coroner’s office came and they took the body, there were two sons-in-law there. One had just had open-heart surgery two weeks before, and he kept saying, ‘Who’s going to clean this up?’ And the young guy said, ‘I guess I’ll have to do it.’ And then I said, ‘I’ll help you.’ There were two daughters there and they said, ‘You can’t do that, you’re a priest.’ And, I said, ‘I am doing that, and it’s because I’m a priest that I’m doing it. That’s why I became a priest. I want to help people, and I don’t care what I have to do.’”

Msgr. Giroir said his goal at the Rummel ceremony was to impress upon the students that priests aren’t just people they see performing rituals inside a church building.

“The most important thing is we are there when people need us,” Msgr. Giroir said. “I was nervous, but I think I did OK.”

Msgr. Giroir grew up in a culture of vocations at St. Louis King of France in Bucktown, where Msgr. Marion Reid was the pastor.

“The year I was ordained as a deacon, three other guys from St. Louis King of France were ordained as priests,” he said.

The little things he’s learned from his elders have created an unbroken chain with the past. Msgr. Poche told him about passing out roses to moms on Mother’s Day.

“So, I began passing out carnations on Mother’s Day – we couldn’t afford roses!” he said, laughing.

Of all the things he has taken pride in as a Rummel graduate, the No. 1 moment came just after Hurricane Katrina, when the all-boys’ school went to a two-platoon system to educate girls and boys so that families could get back to restore their lives as quickly as possible.

“Mr. (Michael) Begg (the Rummel principal) called me and asked what we needed to do, and I said, ‘Open the school!’” Msgr. Giroir said. “People were not coming back for their jobs. They were coming back for normalcy in their children’s lives.”

He also was pastor of St. Rita in Harahan at the time, and St. Rita School was the first school – public, private or Catholic – to reopen in East Jefferson.

“We had 100 extra students the year of Katrina,” Msgr. Giroir said.

Two years ago, Msgr. Giroir had open heart surgery, and while the operation has sapped some of his energy, he’s far from handing over his Rummel ring.

Three days after his surgery, Msgr. Giroir was in the ICU – with a catheter in his groin – trying to stabilize his vital signs. Just then, a female patient in an ICU room next to him began going into cardiac arrest.

“My heart doctor had come to see me, and he said, ‘You need to go do that thing you do,’” Msgr. Giroir said. “I told him, ‘Come here, I’m going to teach you about the anointing of the sick and what it means to a Catholic.’ So, they put me in a wheelchair, and I went into the room and anointed the lady. All eight nurses from the ward came into the room and lined up against the wall. And, I said, ‘What are y’all doing?’ And, they said, ‘We’ve never seen a patient who’s had open-heart surgery three days before anoint another patient.’

“I said, ‘You don’t understand. I’m a Catholic priest. As long as I can breathe, as long as I can function, I have to help. I have to do my job. That’s why I became a priest.’”

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