Fr. Patrick Pollard named new Notre Dame pastor

By Michael Comstock

Rev. Patrick Joseph Pollard sits in his new office at Notre Dame De Chicago Parish, patiently waiting for help from a customer service representative for a problem with his internet connection. Being on the computer is all in a day’s work for a parish pastor in this modern age.

Fr. Pollard was born in the Portage Park area of Chicago’s Northwest Side, the son of the late Richard and Marie (nee Pagano) Pollard, at St. Anne’s Hospital on Sept. 28, 1946. He is just ten years away from retirement, when priests are no longer “responsible for whether the lights are on or the bills are paid or that the plumbing works,” he said. “We can reflect…on our ministry and really serve people, senior people, using our own wisdom and experience. But I have ten years to work before I can get to retirement.”

It is those next ten years he hopes to spend at Notre Dame. “I didn’t just want to go to a parish for three or four years,” he said. “I wanted to have a good length of time at a parish before my retirement.” Before moving to Notre Dame in July, he spent nine years at Christ the King Parish at 9235 S. Hamilton Ave.

Fr. Pollard is “a man of great heart and great care for his people,” said Loretta Crotty, the pastoral associate at Christ the King. “He was a wonderful administrator. We wish him well at his new parish.”

Rev. Paul Reicher, Fr. Pollard’s predecessor, retired in June. “Fr. Paul did a magnificent job here,” Fr. Pollard said. “The church is a testimony to that. He’s secured the future of the church for many decades to come.”

He fell in love with Notre Dame the moment he arrived. “When I walked into the church and saw just how tastefully it was restored and how beautifully it was renovated to enhance all the sacred ritual gatherings that we do as Catholics, I just said that I’ve got to pray with these people,” he said.

The community surrounding Notre Dame is important to Fr. Pollard. “The people I’ve met here are just wonderful,” he said. “They come from all over. People come back here on Sunday [who] live far away; they may live in other communities, but there’s something about this spirit of being at Notre Dame that is wonderful.

“So this church gathers some senior citizens who have been here for years, and then there are new people, youngsters, and young couples moving into the community. The community is definitely rebirthing itself. Little Italy and University Village are just becoming a magnificent spot to live.”

Fr. Pollard also has been director of the Priests’ Retirement and Mutual Aid Association since elected to that position in 1980. “I’m in my seventh four-year term,” he said, “taking care of our priests’ health and our priests’ pensions for the active and retired priests of the Archdiocese. In the Archdiocese of Chicago right now, we have 580 active and 244 retired priests.”

He also is director of the Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the largest group of its kind in the nation. “Right now we have 43 cemeteries in the Archdiocese, and we bury 18,000 persons each year,” he said. “That’s a tremendous number of funerals. I have a staff of 300 employees. We run all of the [Catholic] cemeteries in Lake and Cook Counties in Illinois.” He is only the third director of this group; the former two were Monsignor William Casey, who died in 1951, and Monsignor Francis McElligote, who served until 1987, when the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin named Fr. Pollard to the position.

He also is vice president of the national Catholic Cemetery Conference. “He’s probably best known as an ambassador for the cemeteries,” said Bill Burbatt, director of information technologies for the Catholic Cemeteries of Chicago. “We have a lot of dioceses that come here looking for help, wisdom, and guidance, so he’s always sharing and guiding.”

A lifelong Chicagoan, Fr. Pollard attended mostly Catholic schools. As a grade school student he went to St. Bartholomew, Nativity BVM, and graduated from St. Bede the Venerable. The only exception was in third grade, when he attended Stevenson because his new Southwest Side neighborhood did not have a Catholic school until St. Bede opened the following year.

After attending Brother Rice for a year, he finished high school at Quigley South in 1964, where he trained to be a priest before going to the University of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, IL. While in college, he simultaneously did graduate work in sociology at DePaul University. He received a bachelor of arts, a bachelor of sacred theology, and a master’s of divinity from St. Mary of the Lake.

After schooling, Fr. Pollard became a deacon at St. Nicholas of Toletine. He then went to St. Henry, where after his ordination in 1972 he served as associate pastor. He also served in that position at St. Clotilde, St. Thomas More, and seven years at St. Barnabas. “Then I went to St. Colette in Rolling Meadows, my only suburban experience,” he said. “I was there for only three years, and then I went to St. Denis on the Southwest Side.

“I was there for five years. I wanted to be at St. Denis, because my mother developed Parkinson’s and I could just hop on my bike and be at my mom’s house at a neighboring parish. My mother lived until 2001.” In 1998 he began nine years as pastor of Christ the King.

Fr. Pollard has great confidence in Notre Dame. “I hope to keep the great traditions that my predecessor started,” he said. “Sister Kathy Brazda has been pastoral associate here and developed many fine programs. Megan Mio is our new pastoral associate. She’ll continue that fine work that Sister Kathy began.

“This parish community could stand shoulder to shoulder with many of our large city and our large suburban communities through all the different programs we provide for people,” he said.

Burbatt, who has known Fr. Pollard since 1985, said, “He’s a very good spiritual leader. He’s a very intellectual man. He thinks about problems, and he comes up with good solutions. He’s very insightful; he has a lot of foresight.”