Father Francis Schouten, 96, is the oldest diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Born in 1929 and ordained in 1955, he celebrated his 70th anniversary of ordination earlier this year.
But for the first half of his priestly life, Schouten was not a diocesan priest; he was a member of the Society of the Divine Word who ministered for years as a missionary in Ghana.
“I went to the Divine Word seminary in East Troy (Wisconsin) when I was 13,” said Schouten. “Right from St. Willibrord School.”
Schouten was the sixth of seven children in his family and lived in the Roseland neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago. His family is Dutch, and St. Willibrord was the Dutch parish, he explained.
Several of the boys from the parish joined the society, he said, including his older brother, David.
Two sisters entered religious life as well, although in different communities.
Francis, or Frank, Schouten skipped eighth grade, he said, after passing a test the pastor gave all the seventh graders at the end of the year to determine whether they were ready for high school.
He followed his religious community’s formation path, with high school in East Troy; college in Epworth, Iowa; and philosophy and theology studies in Techny, where he was ordained.
In 1956, he was missioned to Ghana, where Father David Schouten was already serving.
“Was I ready? No one is ready,” Schouten said in an interview in the Mount Greenwood home he lives in with his older brother, Joseph, 102. “Everything is a surprise.”
That included the food — their Dutch parents didn’t prepare much spicy food at home, both Schoutens agree — as well as the climate, language and culture. But Father Frank Schouten enjoyed it.
“The people were very nice, very kind,” he said. “And of course, there were other members of my own community there.”
In Ghana, he served as a parish priest, built schools and churches and taught at a secondary school outside Accra, the capital.
The school was intended for boys who were considering whether they had vocations to the priesthood as well as other students, he said, and in later years, he learned that three of his students went on to not only be ordained but became bishops.
“A lot of the positions the missionaries had are now filled by native priests, which is a sign of the church taking root,” Schouten said. “It’s a great consolation.”
Schouten ended up contracting hepatitis, and then suffered complications from it, so the Society of the Divine Word brought him home to Chicago. After he recovered, he returned to Ghana for about a year, but he could no longer maintain his health there, and he came home again.
Once back in Chicago, he assisted at Most Holy Redeemer Parish in Evergreen Park for several years.
In 1990, he said, the society asked him to “make a decision” about where his priestly ministry lay: as a missionary, or in a diocesan parish.
That was when he asked Cardinal Joseph Bernardin whether he could be incardinated into the archdiocese.
“Cardinal Bernardin was open to it,” he said, but added that he believes he was one of the first, if not the first, religious priest incardinated into the archdiocese. “They had to have a committee decide whether it could be done.”
Schouten went on to serve as an associate pastor at St. Eugene Parish on the Northwest Side until he retired at age 70 in 1999.
He moved to New Port Richey, Florida, after retiring, but only stayed a few years.
“I had a priest friend who had a condo there, so I bought a condo and I moved,” Schouten said. “I never liked the winter.”
But Florida did not agree with him, he said. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the isolation of living alone, but he found his health suffering again.
June Schouten, Joe’s wife, invited him to come and stay with them.
“I came for two weeks and I stayed for 20 years,” he joked.
Schouten continued to assist at Most Holy Redeemer, only a couple of miles away from his brother’s house, until the COVID-19 pandemic shut churches for a few months in 2020.
June Schouten died five years ago, and now the brothers keep each other company, they said. The dining room wall is covered with photos of Joe’s children and grandchildren. He had five children; the four who are still living come different days each week to share a meal and play cards.
Schouten said he’s optimistic about the current state of the church.
“We have good leaders,” he said. “Cardinal Cupich is doing a good job. And now we have a pope in our camp. Dolton’s not far from here.”