Gregory Schaffer was born in St. Paul, studied at St. Paul Seminary and was ordained as a Catholic priest for the Diocese of New Ulm. But he found his true calling in Guatemala.
He hadn't anticipated his appointment as a diocesan missionary there in 1963. Yet he stayed for more than four decades, leading project after project to better the lives of the Guatemalan people he loved.
Schaffer, whose caring and charisma drew thousands of Minnesota volunteers to San Lucas Toliman, died May 24 of lymphoma. He was 78.
"He was a devoted pastor and thinker and man who was generous in every way," said the Rev. John Francis Brandes, a retired priest who spent 10 years at the mission.
Schaffer was born in St. Paul in 1934. He was one of 10 siblings, yet "we never knew hunger," said his sister Ann Wiggins, of Eagan. "We always had a garden. The house smelled of homemade breads."
He studied at Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary, then St. Paul Seminary. In 1963, he was assigned to the mission in San Lucas Toliman, founded by a Franciscan order in the late 16th century.
His parents visited in 1965, Wiggins said. "When they came home, Dad said, 'He's never going to come back.'"
Over his decades there, Schaffer oversaw "an establishment which is mind-boggling," according to a St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity newsletter noting Schaffer's distinguished alumni award. "A parish church building, a school, a hospital, a program of agricultural education, a relentless drive for social justice implemented among the rural poor."
