HERO
FATHER LOUIS TRIVISON
FOUNDER OF THE CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION
ON HIS 60TH YEARS AS A PRIEST

One of the most modern and beautiful churches in the diocese of Cleveland is the Church of the Resurrection on Cannon Road in Solon, Ohio. It is truly a church envisioned by the Second Vatican Council, one that involves both priest and people in the Eucharistic celebration. This did not happen by chance but through the leadership of Father Louis Trivison, who after his ordination in 1948 always attended the week-long conference of the National Liturgical Conference where he listened to many of the great liturgists of the world tell the clergy and laity what changes we in the church could expect. When he became the founding pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in 1971, he assembled a pastoral team that decided there would be no parish school. The pastoral team would educate the people on how they could teach religious education to their children.

I was there for the dedication of the church and I was there on September 8, 1996 for his retirement dinner where a number of his friends were asked not only to praise him but “to roast him.” It was a fun night. Following is my part in the roast.

Remarks by George Eppley at the retirement dinner for Rev. Louis Trivison in Solon, Ohio, on September 8, 1996:

There is no doubt that someday Louis Trivison will be raised to sainthood. We are here in anticipation of that great event. As you know, the process of canonization is a very long, involved and expensive process unless one belongs to a society known as Opus Dei. Lou Trivison does not.

A number of people will give positive testimony:

*About his birth Legend has it that at his birth exquisitely beautiful voices were heard singing on Murray Hill throughout the night. Some people said it was a choir of angels and that the boy child should be named Angel or Angelo; but the boy's father said in solemn biblical tones reminiscent of Zachary, "My boy will be called Louis." This disappointed the boy's Uncle Angelo, a monsignor, who thought the new baby boy would be named after him. Monsignor Angelo had commissioned a beautiful statue of an angel to be sculpted as a gift to the child. For years the young Louis kept the statue near his bed. Research about those mysterious voices at his birth has provoked controversy on Murray Hill. Some say that it really was a choir of angels; others say that it was a team of exuberant bocci ball players celebrating a tournament win. Since as a child I devoured books on the lives of the saints by Father Faber, I prefer to believe that it was a choir of angels. Why let facts screw up a good myth?

*About his family His sisters will testify that at age seven the young Louis erected an altar in his room. He had his mother make vestments for him and allowed his sisters to watch as he went through the ritual of Mass. But he refused to let his sisters put on the vestments. Young Louis told them, "Only boys can become priests. Girls can only become nuns who wait on priests." It was clear that at an early age Louis was destined for great things in the church.

*About his scholarship His classmates at Cathedral Latin high school (myself included) will attest that Lou always led the honor roll. Four times a year for four years the headline of the school paper would announce "Trivison's 98 point average leads his class." Our parents would say, 'Why can’t you get high grades like that Trivison boy?" It never occurred to any of us to ask them, 'Why didn't you give me better genes?" It might have seemed easy to hate Lou Trivison, but he won us over with his charm and angelic smile. We were glad that he was our class valedictorian, the one saying farewell to our high school.. Secretly, some part in us dummies was also glad that we were saying farewell to him.

*About those annual vacations in Florida. His golfing buddies, all priests, will attest that he never swore on the course or threw his clubs in the water after misplaying a shot. The strongest language that could be heard coming from the swamps in the everglades was "For crying out loud, I've been bitten by an alligator.

Although Lou Trivison may be the perfect golfer for temperament, he is not the perfect companion for a vacation trip. But saints are like that. They can be real pains. They have good temperaments, but they test the temperaments of those with whom they live. On vacation, for example, "Lou Trivison always wanted to keep a schedule for retiring, for rising, for meditating for spiritual reading, for celebrating Mass, for golfing, for swimming, for napping, for eating dinner, for watching the evening movie. At eleven Louie would wind up an alarm clock and say, “Well, boys, what time shall we get up? Our starting time at the golf courses is 9:00 AM." He knew damned well what time we would get up. Five o'clock.

Let's go 20 years into the future. I can just picture Lou, Eldon Reichert, Jack McDonough, Bob Kline, Jimmy O'Donnell and Paul Hritz at a resort in Florida. It is early evening and the boys are all settled into their rooms. They had an early bird special at a restaurant with soft music that doesn't produce any feedback in their hearing aids. They have watched Barney, and seen a video of Mary Poppins or Sound of Music or Bells of Saint Mary or Going My Way, part of Paul Hritz's video collection. They have all taken their Ovaltine generously laced with Metamucill and are in bed at 8:00 PM. Suddenly Louie who is getting forgetful jumps out of bed and walks down the corridor winding up that damned alarm clock, asking, "Well, boys, what time shall we get up?" An exasperated Jack McDonough shakes his cane and says, "Louie, if I told you once, I have told you a hundred times. There are no tee off times at the Putt Putt course."

Not everyone in the canonization process thinks that Louis Trivison should be declared a saint. There will be compelling and powerful evidence from the Devil's Advocate who may point out the following:

*That Lou is a distant relative of Luigi Cardinal Trivisoni a 15th century prelate who was surrounded by sycophants, hangers on, and brown nosers but did not like them. On the Cardinal's coat of arms was written in Latin "Anulum solum faveas osculari." Translated this means, "Please kiss only the ring." The cardinal wrote that women should have greater roles in the decision making of the church, that priests should marry, that the Mass should be in the language of the people, that priests should continue their education.

Cardinal Trivisoni disappeared one night after eating a large bowl of pasta and drinking a carafe of chianti with some visitors from the papal court. He has never been heard from again a 15th century Jimmy Hoffa. Some say that his chianti was poisoned and that his guests threw his body into the Tiber. Others say that he escaped and that he roams the earth in search of a clerical body that he can possess and force to do his bidding. The Devil's Advocate will claim that in the body of Louis Trivison is the mind, spirit, soul and heart of Luigi Cardinal Trivisoni.

Let me conclude by announcing that there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that all the members of the commission on canonization will vote negative on the question of whether Louis Trivison should be canonized. We should not be surprised. All through his priesthood the decision makers in Rome have been voting negative on Lou Trivison. We should be celebrating today the retirement not of Father Louis Trivison but that of Louis Cardinal Trivison. He would have gone farther but he was more interested in pursuing the power of truth than the truth of power. When he had to deal with the hierarchy, which he did rarely and reluctantly, he kissed only the ring.

The good news is that there is a way to ignore the modern process of canonization. The older tradition knows another and more valid process: the process of acclamation. In the days prior to Vatican bureaucrats, the people acclaimed a person a saint. So let the bureaucrats in Rome know that when Louis Trivison dies, we the people intend to acclaim him as angel, friend, scholar, visionary, pastor, leader, saint.

Note: I was there also on Sunday, May 25, 2008 when Lou Trivison, now retired and living at Light of Hearts Villa, returned to the Church of the Resurrection to celebrate Mass on the occasion of his 60th anniversary as a priest of the diocese of Cleveland. It was a moving experience for the hundreds of people – parishioners, relatives and friends – who attended. Lou in his homily made a special point of recognizing and thanking the present pastoral team– Lisa Frey, Terry Battaglia, and Mark Hobson, the visionary pastor who succeeded him.

Thank you, Lou, for your outstanding 60 years of service and sacrifice for the diocese of Cleveland. You have given us a new paradigm for the church in the 21st century.

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