File 548 - Fr Franz Schrenk SJ

Born: 02 December 1909, Řetenice, Teplice, Czech Republic
Entered: 07 September 1929, Trnava, Czechoslovakia - Cechoslovacae Province (CESC)
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1947, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 15 August 1992, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

Transcribed CESC to ASR; ASR to HIB 1952

by 1937 came to Milltown (HIB) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 22nd Year No 2 1947
Belvedere :
The Times Pictorial of March 8th devoted its front page to photos of the German children who are under the zealous care of Fr. Schrenk. Photos showed them receiving religious instruction from Fr. Schrenk, at Mass and Communion in the College Chapel, at breakfast, etc.

◆ Interfuse No 82 : September 1995 & ◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1993

Obituary

Fr Franz Schrenk (1909-1992)

2nd Dec. 1909: Born in Czechoslovakia
7th Sept. 1929: Entered the Society of Jesus at Velehrad, Moravia
1931 - 1934: Studied Philosophy at Pullach
1934 - 1936: Regency in Duppan
1936 - 1940: Studied Theology at Milltown Park
31st July 1949; Ordained at Milltown Park
1940 - 1941: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1941 - 1992: Belvedere-Teacher (Philosophy/Russian/German), also Spiritual Welfare of German-speakers in Dublin.
1951: Transcribed to Irish Province in 1951
15th Aug, 1992: Died at Bon Secours Hospital

The story of Franz's life is quite quickly told. He did not speak much of it himself, although sometimes with a glass of whiskey he would indulge in a little reminiscence about his family and his experiences. He was gently critical of his Jesuit friend and compatriot Max Prokoph who spent his life in Africa and who wrote a small volume of reminiscences published shortly after he died. (”That he should be so foolish”). He always refused to give the boys an interview for the school annual, The Belvederian, if the subject matter was to be his own life, which is, of course, what they were really interested in. As a result of all this, some of the information I will mention has been gleaned from the archives and is mentioned among us now for the first time.

In stressing Franz's reluctance to speak of himself, I do not wish to convey an impression of any kind of neurotic self-depreciation - he was the most un-neurotic person you could ever meet.

He was born in Settenz, in what was then Czechoslovakia, in 1909 and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Velehrad in Moravia in 1929. He studied philosophy with the German Jesuits at Pullach, outside Munich where Fr. - now Blessed - Rupert Mayer was living at the time. (One of the most moving and memorable occasions in community in Belvedere was Franz's address to us about Fr. Mayer at the time of his beatification, when the rector managed to persuade him to take the unusual step of talking to us in this way). In 1936 he made the fateful move to Ireland to study theology, just as the war clouds were gathering over Europe. By the time he was ordained in 1939 and had completed his tertianship at Rathfarnham in 1941, there was no longer any possibility of going home, first because of the war itself, later because of the communist take-over in his country and the expulsion of his family. And so he was forced to stay.

In 1941 he began the longest continuous membership of the Belvedere Community in history (though Fr. Peadar MacSéumais is - if the image isn't too bizarre and he doesn't object - coming up fast on the rails!). He was chaplain to the German speaking community in Dublin (there is a touching picture in The Belvederian about this time of Franz shepherding three German war-orphans across the snow filled school yard in Belvedere, after giving them their First Holy Communion in the Boys' Chapel). He taught German and Religion in the school. He took charge of the Philosophy course from 1942 until it died out in the 1970's. He even taught some Russian, before school in the mornings, for a few years in the 1960's. As a teacher, he was intelligent, capable, solid and fair-minded. Through his German contacts, he was able to obtain substantial financial assistance from the Archdiocese of Köln for the building of the new Kerr Wing in the 1970's although - typically - he never spoke of this. In the early 1950's he began his European tours for senior boys, which were such a pioneering venture in Ireland at that time. They were gratefully remembered by all who took part and they allowed him to slip across the border in Berlin to visit his family behind the 'Iron Curtain'. He was to remain an intrepid traveller to the end of his life. In 1989 we had the joy of celebrating with him his eightieth birthday, the sixtieth anniversary of his entry into the Society of Jesus and the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as a priest.

With such a history Franz might have been something of an exotic in the surroundings of Belvedere - yet he was the most unexotic person imaginable. He never drew attention to himself, he was always unobtrusive, ordinary. His room was typical of himself - furnished with the simple amenities he required, no more and no less. He was sane and balanced in his views. He was rarely outspoken and impressive when he was. He was patient and undemanding even when, in his last years, he was unwell. He bore his deafness without complaint - we would be forced to remember his difficulty by the whistling sound of his hearing aid as he adjusted it, but there was never any criticism of others implied. He simply never complained about his life or the lot which had condemned him to live in exile from his country and his family.

He was never changed from Belvedere over a period of 51 years and there was never any need to change him: he was a free man. He was open to new ideas (he told me once how his sister had said to him, at the time of the Second Vatican Council: 'This is not new for you - you always thought this'). Yet he was no faddist, not a man to espouse popular ideas just because they were popular, He was his own man. He would have appreciated the praise of one of the Christian Brothers at Marino, where we used to say Mass on a regular basis: “Fr, Schrenk knows which side of the altar he belongs to”! On the other hand, he willingly concelebrated on special occasions, until a few years ago, when deafness made this too difficult. (He would tell you about this quietly, undemonstratively). He said Mass with quiet, unspectacular reverence and absolute fidelity to the very end of his life. He had a genuine, well-informed and intelligent interest in world events, especially in Eastern Europe, where he and his family had endured so much. He watched the collapse of communism with initial scepticism and then lost no time in using the opportunity this gave him of visiting his brother and sisters outside Berlin and he would go not only in the summer, as was his custom, but at Christmas as well. (He made all his own travel arrangements and headed off with the courage and intrepidity that characterised everything about him). He took Irish citizenship in 1953 and the measure of his interest in his country of adoption was the strength of his republicanism and his support for Fianna Fail (the virulence of which sometimes surprised us!). He heartily disapproved of Mrs Thatcher! For recreation, he liked to watch football on television - any football anywhere! You would even find him viewing obscure matches in the Argentinian First Division, beamed on one of the new satellite stations. But, with Franz, if someone else wanted a different station, that was always negotiable - and those who live in community will know what heroic virtue such freedom can sometimes entail!!

It is impossible to think that Franz Schrenk left a single enemy behind him, not because he was the kind of person who would seek peace for peace's sake or was a time server of any sort - he was an utterly truthful, real person, with no pretence. His own man - but because of the spontaneous benevolence which he radiated to everyone, I think of the shy smile with which he would greet you, his quiet charm towards strangers and visitors to the community. For all the independence of mind with which he lived his life, he was very much in community and observed the brethren with wry but completely unmalicious humour, An example of his dry observation after one of the older fathers had described how all the lady-teachers on the staff had given him a kiss to mark his jubilee - “They call that sexual harassment!” He was very much in the community but he also got on with the quiet pastoral service with which he filled his spare time and the years of his retirement and about which we knew little enough. He was still driving a borrowed car in the final weeks of his life - to visit his friends and those he had committed himself to look after. His care for his family was with him to the very end. He admitted with gentle guilt that he had managed to skip the queue in the Mater Hospital to get his cataract operation done sooner, so that he could go to Germany and visit his family - a visit he was never able to make.

Franz died as he had lived, unobtrusively. His death marked the end of a long, contented, extraordinarily good life. It is hard for us to convey how deeply sad we are today, even though we are not sad for him. We know now it was a very great privilege to have lived with him. For me myself (I first met him when I was seven and he taught me English in Elements class), it is an inestimable privilege to say these few words for Franz, my father, my brother, “good faithful servant”.

Bruce Bradley