Former Creighton University president Father John Schlegel is being remembered as a teacher, mentor, and friend.
Schlegel died last Sunday of pancreatic cancer. He was 72 years old.
Family, friends, and the community gathered Friday morning at St. John’s Church on the Creighton campus to pay tribute to Fr. Schlegel. He was Creighton’s president for 11 years, and taught at the university in the late 1970s.
His nephew, Eric, remembered Fr. Schlegel as a leader.
“To be great is to set impossible goals and meet them. And my Uncle John has done just that. From San Francisco to Omaha, to Milwaukee, to New York, he touched thousands of lives. He set goals that others would have considered impossible, and with help from many of you, those goals became reality.”
The Reverend Joseph Brown, S.J., Professor of African Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, remembered his longtime friend as a man of dignity, compassion, and hope.
“In our beginnings are our endings, and in our endings are our beginnings, if we are people of faith. From a man who could see and speak prophecy at the age of 20, to a man who delighted in the fullness of his priesthood always, but most especially at the end of his professional ministry, that was his beginning and his ending.”
During his tenure at Creighton, Fr. Schlegel oversaw a $450 million capital campaign. Creighton’s campus expanded, with new buildings and athletic facilities.
After his retirement, Fr. Schlegel joined the pastoral team at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He was a native of Dubuque, Iowa.