Solanus Casey

The Holy Doorkeeper

Bernard Francis Casey was born on November 25, 1870, near Prescott, Wisconsin, the sixth of sixteen children in an Irish immigrant family. After witnessing a violent stabbing as a young man, he felt a powerful call to the priesthood. He entered the Capuchin order in Detroit in 1897, taking the religious name Solanus.

Because his seminary studies were conducted in German and Latin, languages he struggled with, his superiors ordained him a simplex priest: he could celebrate Mass but was not permitted to preach formal sermons or hear confessions. Rather than resenting this humiliation, Solanus embraced it with radical humility. He was assigned as the porter, the doorkeeper, at Capuchin monasteries in New York, Indiana, and Detroit.

At the door, Father Solanus met thousands of people seeking help. He enrolled the sick in the Seraphic Mass Association and told them simply to “thank God ahead of time.” Inexplicable healings began to multiply. The Capuchins started keeping records, filling notebooks with documented cases. People lined up for hours outside the monastery to see him.

Father Solanus died on July 31, 1957, in Detroit. Twenty thousand people attended his funeral. He was declared Venerable in 1995 and beatified before 70,000 faithful at Ford Field in Detroit on November 18, 2017. His remains rest at the Solanus Casey Center in Detroit, which continues to welcome pilgrims seeking his intercession.

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