New Pastor at Holy Family Church is Right at Home

The Rev. Paul Rosing, the new pastor of Holy Family Church in Stow, feels right at home in the 3,200-household parish. And for good reason.

Rosing has served as Holy Family’s parochial administrator since November 2002. He was assigned to provide pastoral leadership to the parish in the wake of sexual abuse allegations that resulted in former pastor Joseph Lieberth being placed on administrative leave.

Lieberth’s recently submitted resignation was accepted by Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon, who then appointed Rosing as Holy Family’s pastor.

The Mass of Installation for Rosing – to be celebrated by Bishop Lennon – will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Holy Family, followed by a punch and cookie reception in the church hall. All parishioners and other friends are welcome to attend.

Rosing said when he was assigned to serve Holy Family on an “interim” basis, he knew it would be a lengthy stay.

“There was never the question of whether or not I would be here a long time, but for lots of people it was ambiguous. But having the new position is a nice thing, a good thing. It erases that ambiguity and reconfirms the pastoral relationship that we have,” he said.

Rosing, 63, recently told parishioners in the weekly bulletin, “The cura animorum – the care of souls – has been my joy and privilege, as well as my responsibility, for the past eight years … My title has changed – happily so.”

While his role at the church has included working to “correct the failures of the past,” Rosing would like his appointment to be viewed as the start of a new chapter in Holy Family’s story.

In describing his goals for the church recently, Rosing referred to a written message he plans to share with parishioners on Sunday.

“This event not only opens a significant new chapter in my own ministry – but it also serves as a watershed moment for our whole parish. The last eight years have found us in uncharted waters as we have tried to remain faithful to our calling as Catholic Christians.

“The church in the U.S. has continued to struggle with the consequences of the clergy scandals that will, tragically, forever be a part of our history as Catholics. We have known those struggles – and the consequences – all too directly,” Rosing's message says.

 “As I see it, we have not come to the end of the story. That will come in God’s good time. We have come, however, to a significant point of closure, a time of turning the page to a new chapter.”

Rosing said he feels very comfortable at Holy Family as the church. Its family and neighborhood remind him of his childhood. Rosing, the oldest of six children in his family, attended St. Mark Parish School in Cleveland's West Park/Lakewood area.

He attended Borromeo Seminary High School in Wickliffe, then continued seminary training at Borromeo College and St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe.

Rosing recalls being interested in the priesthood as early as grade school, so attending a seminary high school was a natural progression.

“I really liked all the priests. They were all people I admired and I thought, ‘I could do that.’ At that time there was a lot of encouragement of eighth-graders to consider that as a vocational option, so it wasn’t difficult to make that decision back then,” he explained.

After he was ordained a priest in the Cleveland diocese, Rosing served as an associate pastor in parishes in Akron, Cuyahoga Falls and Wooster. In June 1984 he was appointed pastor of Annunciation Parish in Akron, where he remained until his assignment to Holy Family.