MY FAVORITE PRIEST

A phenomenon
By John J. Brennan and Wm. C. Fetherston

n The Reverend Ray H. Reis, S.J. is a phenomenon.

During the year 1930 when he was still a scholastic he was editor of The Modern Schoolman. Four of his editorials are to be found in the archives of the Marquette University Library.

Ray Reis, S.J., M.A., S.T.L., Ph.D., R.N., B.S.N. was born on 25 March 1905. His grandparents came to the St. Louis area from France and Germany. In grade school Ray Reis studied the catechism in both German and English. The German was dropped during the First World War. In 1919 he graduated from St. Boniface and started Kenrick, the diocesan high school. The following year he entered Quincy Academy, a boarding school in Quincy, Ill. 25% of his graduation class went into a seminary or novitiate. Another 25% went to medical school; others became lawyers or teachers. Philosophy was taught in Latin. The textbooks were written in Latin. Ray Reis entered St. Louis University as a premed student but within a year in 1924 he drove to Florrisant with his parents and his older brother to enroll in the Jesuit Seminary. There were more than one hundred novices — sixty eight in their first year.

During his Juniorate he selected biology for further training because of his very brief pre-med career. All his training prior to that time had been in Philosophy. He obtained a Ph.D. in biology. He was ordained in 1937 and served his Tertianship in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1940 he arrived in Milwaukee to teach biology at Marquette University. He taught comparative anatomy and genetics at Marquette University for many years.

A few days before his death this year the Rev. Charles Shinners, S.J. talked about a memorable baseball game played on Jesuit Island, Lake Buelah, Wisconsin. Father Reis was manager of the Jesuit priests team and Father Shinners was manager of the Jesuit Scholastics team.

He had a great deal to do in deciding who was admitted to Marquette Medical and Dental Schools. On tests he would take off a point or two for poor English or poor spelling. He would add a note saying, “If you expect to be a doctor you must improve your spelling and your penmanship.” He was so well respected he was asked to perform several wedding ceremonies for medical and dental students.

In 1960 Father Reis and another Jesuit, Robert Hoene, studied 109 marriages of first cousins in Chicago. They wrote on “Catholic Consanguineous Marriages.” They found “The frequent pronouncements of the late Pontiff, Pius XII, have made it abundantly clear that the Church is concerned for the social and economic, no less than the moral well-being of her children. With respect to the problem of consanguineous marriages, the regulations of the Church concerning the marriage of first cousins are based on moral as well as ascetical grounds. So far as the Chicago area is concerned, the number of first cousins marrying one another at present is less than 1/20th of 1%. Those of Italian descent seemed to predominate in this type of union. The home life of these couples is generally superior to that of their brothers or sisters. The marriage bond is more permanent. The number of children per family is quite small, approximately two. There apparently is very little, if any, increase in miscarriages or still-births. The number of early deaths is about three times as high as that of the children in the general population. Abnormalities, both serious and slight, likewise are much higher. With respect to the children, there is an added risk of about 12.4% so far as miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, infantile and juvenile death and general abnormalities are concerned. The intelligence of the children of such unions is generally equal to that of the children of the brothers or sisters of those who had married their first cousins.”

Other studies were done on five hundred dogs with Pauline Tepe to study their renal vessels in relation to their vena cava.

With Dr. Al Rieck he studied one thousand cats and found that 21.3% had atypical posterior vena cavas. Dr. Rieck became Professor of Physiology in Marquette University School of Medicine.

Five hundred human cadavers were studied with Glenn Esenther.

Fundamental differences exist in the cat and man with regard to adult pattern of renal vascular pathways. In contrast to the cat, the dog manifests an extremely stereotyped vena cava posterior.

He has presented over fifty scientific papers or lectures. In 1961 he moved to St. Louis University to head the biology department.

When Father Reis reached retirement age he realized that he was a far better teacher at sixty or seventy than he had been at forty or fifty. Because of his lineage he realized he had a long time to be of service. He then went to nursing school and earned an R.N. degree so that he could look after older Jesuits. One of the Jesuits under his care now is the Rev. Edward Manhardt, S.J. who taught Latin at Marquette High in 1936. Father Manhardt is now at least 102. He uses a walker.

In retirement Fr. Reis has provided nursing care for the retired Jesuits in St. Louis for the past twenty-five years. He has said Mass for retired Franciscan Sisters at Our Lady of Victory Convent several days each week. He gives retreats to religious communities and lay people in the St. Louis area. He does some gardening for nuns in a convent an hour’s drive south of St. Louis. He comes to Milwaukee each summer to visit some of his former students. Fr. Ray Reis, S.J., is our favorite priest.

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