Above: The junior high age future bishop, Oscar Cantú, is shown standing, second from the right, as a member of the Holy Name basketball team. Left: The bishop’s third grade school picture from Holy Name School. Photos provided

SAN ANTONIO • The news of a former student making good is always music to a teacher’s ears. In this case, the ears were those of the Houston area Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament (CVI), who were teachers of Bishop Oscar Cantú during his school days in Houston.

Word that he was to be ordained a bishop — the youngest serving in the United States — brought feelings of jubilation and pride, as well as sadness at parting with a beloved diocesan priest.

Several of the bishop’s former teachers have been kind enough to share a few thoughts and memories of his earlier years.

Bishop Cantú attended Holy Name School in Houston, where his first grade teacher, Sister Charline Schlebach, CVI, remembers him as the quiet little boy with the “beautiful smile” in her class who would go on to become a third grade student council representative and a winner in the Houston Power and Lighting Art Contest. He loved playing basketball in junior high, she recalled, and was on the “A” Team.

When asked her thoughts on learning of his new assignment as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Antonio, she replied, “What an honor it is for him. He will do so well.”

She noted his warmth and pastoral caring for people. “That’s such a gift to the church,” she said, observing that he comes from “a beautiful family,” strong in faith. “Good roots!” she added emphatically.

Sister Helen Spanos, CVI, a religion teacher who also taught him guitar after school in fourth grade, echoed those sentiments. “He had such a beautiful family,” she said.

Sister Helen, who had previously done missionary work in Guatemala, came to teach at Holy Name School in the early ’70s. She recalled arriving in Houston in August and attending the Spanish Mass at Holy Name Church that first Sunday morning. Bishop Cantú’s mother, María de Jesús Cantú, whom she had never met before, approached her there and invited her to come eat at their home.

When Sister Helen learned they were serving caldo (soup), she was ecstatic. “I can hardly wait,” she said to Mrs. Cantú, “because I’ve been wanting some good Mexican caldo!” It was the beginning of a long friendship with the Cantús and their children, the bishop being the fifth of eight.

“It’s just an outstanding family,” she said, referring to the parents. Despite being of humble means, she noted that they saw to it that their children attended Catholic schools. “From the oldest son, down to the youngest,” she added. “That was the kind of family he came from.”

She described the bishop as humble, hardworking and a very committed Christian. As a third or fourth grade guitar student in those long ago days, she remembers him as a quiet but good student, learning such songs as “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” with simple chords she herself had learned from native youths while working in Guatemala.

“I wasn’t surprised about his going to the seminary,” she said, “because he was just a very outstanding little boy.” She remarked also on his later dedication as pastor at his childhood parish Holy Name, a large one with a Catholic school fighting an uphill battle to stay afloat, and his still managing to find time to teach at the seminary as well.

Sister Marian Grace Thies, CVI, taught the future bishop in fourth grade at Holy Name, where she remembers him as a quiet, studious child who was well-liked by classmates and teachers and made “very good grades.” He still teases her about knowing his time tables when she sees him, she related with a chuckle.

“He was very prayerful and very happy,” she recalled and, like his other teachers, she attributed the kind of child he was to his “very wonderful family.”

She never suspected he might one day become a priest — or bishop — but remembers his being “very prayerful,” which did cause the idea to flicker across her mind. “But I had no idea,” she said. “I can’t believe now a child that I taught, that sweet little boy, is becoming a bishop. Fantastic!”

She added, “I am so proud of him,” saying she felt honored to have had a hand in his education. “That’s some of the rewards of being a teacher,” she noted. “I’m going to be praying for him every day,” she said. “You can tell him that. Because that’s a big job — but he can handle it.”

A later teacher of Bishop Cantú’s was Sister Madeleine Grace, CVI, who taught him at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston. The course she taught him back in the early ’90s was patristics, the study of theology of the early church fathers. Here too, he is remembered as a good student.

Sister Madeleine had a further connection with the Cantú family, having formerly taught his oldest sister at Incarnate Word Academy in Houston, which the future bishop’s sisters attended.

“I knew them to be a faith-filled family,” she said of the Cantús. “I certainly could not have predicted that he would have been a bishop,” she said, “but I knew he was certainly a very faithful priest.”

She recollected that as pastor at Holy Name Church he had a personal relationship with his parishioners.
“In a wake service,” she said, “he always did it. He was the one who knew the parishioners. He was the one who said the Mass. He would come back and greet the family.” Sister Madeleine admired him for this since, in many parishes, this job is often passed off to others to perform.

Sister Madeleine described the bishop’s parents as “very rich in the faith,” though materially not well-off, living in Houston’s East End. And she remembers the faithfulness of the family in looking after the father, Ramiro Cantú, after he suffered a stroke and lived for over a year in a diocesan convalescent center before his death last year.

She noted Bishop Cantú is the first inner city Hispanic vocation in their diocese in several years and rattles off a list of his accomplishments: bilingual, pastor of a parish, going out to say Mass at the Magnificat House half-way facility, as well as managing Holy Name School, which is financially challenged, and finding ways to raise money for it.

“He valued Catholic education,” she said. “He was a product of Catholic education all of his life and he wanted that to be given to others.”

Bishop Cantú also taught undergraduate courses in theology at the University of St. Thomas, she noted, where he has been a very popular teacher.

“Naturally, he knows his faith,” she said, “but he’s very clear and he also has a good rapport with college students. And that’s something we really appreciated in him.”

Upon finishing his graduate school dissertation, she noted he was looking forward to teaching at the seminary. "And lo and behold, the Lord had other things in mind," she said, adding, "He will be a great gift to the church in Texas, especially the Archdiocese of San Antonio."