The “Holy Doorman” of St. Bonaventure’s

The Story of Venerable Solanus Casey

By: Diane Morey Hanson

When the doorbell of St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit rang, it sounded sharp and clear, like the clanging of a school bell. And if it rang in the wee hours of the morning, it nearly always startled the thirty or so residents out of their sleep.

But for more than twenty years, one man hurried to open the heavy carved oak doors: Fr. Solanus Casey, “the porter of St. Bonaventure”—the humble, compassionate, healing priest who may one day be the first American-born man to be canonized.

Set Apart. “We knew there was something different about Fr. Solanus,” said Capuchin Franciscan Brother Leo Wollenweber, who served as his assistant for six years. “But in the monastery he was just another one of the friars, and we didn’t know the deep impact he was having on so many people.”

Eighty-five-year-old Brother Leo recalled that Fr. Solanus had “a great sense of humor. He would tell little jokes—often on himself. The friars would kid him a lot, too. He loved hot dogs smothered with onions and he loved baseball. Even when away from Michigan he would keep tabs on…

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