The Formation and Ministry of Bishop Henning

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ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. — The Cathedral of St. Agnes is the seat of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Although the present cathedral wasn’t built until 1935, and the diocese itself established in 1957, the first Mass was celebrated at St. Agnes in 1887, and the first church was erected in 1935.
“I was ordained a bishop here and the memories of my being ordained a bishop here are still pretty powerful,” Bishop Richard G. Henning said as he led Rhode Island Catholic into the majestic cathedral built in a 15th century Norman Gothic style and designed by architect Gustave E. Steinbeck.
“For me, I’ve always associated this place with the priesthood. It’s always been a place I come together with my brothers,” he said, recalling the large celebrations, such as the annual Chrism Mass, which would draw a large cadre of priests to the cathedral.
Bishop Henning was consecrated to the episcopacy by Bishop John O. Barres at the Cathedral of St. Agnes on July 24, 2018. Bishop Emeritus William Murphy and Brooklyn Bishop Robert J. Brennan, and had been serving as an auxiliary bishop when Pope Francis appointed him to serve as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Providence.
Father Michael Duffy, now rector of the Cathedral of St. Agnes, was the Master of Ceremonies for Bishop Henning’s consecration. He was also a student of Bishop Henning when he served as rector of Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington.
Father Duffy first met the future bishop when he was discerning a vocation in college when Bishop Henning participated in a March for Life in Washington, D.C., with a group of students.
He would have many more interactions with Bishop Henning when he began his priestly formation.
“At major seminary, he was an external formator and a Scripture professor,” Father Duffy said. “He was a remarkable presence in the house of fraternity. He tried his best to build up fraternity and community among the men and really bridge that divide between faculty and student in such an incredible way. He really became a mentor first, then a professor, and a friend in priesthood.”
The road to the priesthood for Bishop Henning began when he was a student at Chaminade High School in Mineola.
He credits the influence of the Marianist Order, which runs the Catholic high school, with being a major influence in his faith life and his commitment to learning.
Bishop Henning said he wasn’t much into sports in high school, but looked forward most of all to spending time with family members each summer on Oak Island, where watersports were the order of the day.
He would go on to attend St. John’s University, in Queens. While enrolled as a history major, he was offered the opportunity to stay on for one additional year in order to earn both a B.A. and an M.A.
“It was one additional year, but it was worth doing it,” Bishop Henning said.
Instead of applying to law school, as a great many history majors do, he instead decided to enter the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, on the north shore of Long Island, and begin his preparation for the priesthood.
The seminary’s bucolic grounds, which offer stunning views of Long Island Sound over an old natural stone-lined amphitheater built into the hillside, were the perfect place for seminarians to contemplate God’s creation.
Bishop Henning was ordained a priest in 1992 by the late Rockville Centre Bishop John R. McGann, who shepherded the diocese from 1976 to 2000.
He went on to serve for five years as an associate pastor at the Church of St. Peter of Alcantara, Port Washington, doing extensive pastoral work in the large parish school. He also ministered to the many Spanish-speaking Catholics living in the area, many of them settling there from El Salvador and other Central American countries.
In 1997, Bishop McGann assigned then-Father Henning to post-graduate studies in Sacred Scripture. He earned a Licentiate in Biblical Theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and a doctorate in the same from the Pontifical University in Rome.
During his studies, Bishop Henning acquired reading proficiency in French, Greek and Hebrew. He is also fluent in Spanish and Italian.
After completing his studies in Rome, Bishop Henning joined the faculty of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, where he taught scripture for more than 10 years.
At that same time, he began an assignment as a weekend assistant at St. Patrick Parish in Bay Shore, on the south coast of Long Island, not far from Oak Island. That assignment would go on to last for the next 18 years.
“It’s a parish that I assisted at while teaching 18 years in the seminary, so it’s the closest thing to home for me on the island,” Bishop Henning said. “I have lots of people that have known me for years there.”
In 2012, then Rev. Msgr. Henning was appointed to lead the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception through its transition to the largest retreat house in the Northeast. This was done as part of the partnership for seminary formation among the Dioceses of Rockville Centre, Brooklyn and the Archdiocese of New York.
The bishops of Rockville Centre, Brooklyn and New York also charged him to establish and lead the Sacred Heart Institute for the ongoing formation of Catholic priests and deacons. Bishop Henning has also worked extensively with international priests serving in the U.S.
In September 2017, Bishop Barres appointed Bishop Henning to serve as the episcopal vicar for the Central Vicariate of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. In June of 2021, Bishop Henning also served as the Vicar for Clergy and the Vicar for Pastoral Planning.
On June 8, 2018, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States announced that Pope Francis had appointed Rev. Msgr. Richard Garth Henning to be an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. He was consecrated a bishop on July 24, 2018 in St. Agnes Cathedral by Bishop John O. Barres.
“There’s a beautiful humility and sense for pastoral charity in him. He’s the Good Samaritan who goes the extra mile for everyone,” Bishop Barres told Rhode Island Catholic in an interview at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington on a Sunday night before Vespers.
“He is a very serious biblical theologian, with a mastery of biblical languages, and a dissertation on the discourses of Paul and Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, but he’s someone who can apply it so beautifully and pastorally. He’s an outstanding homilist.”
Bishop Barres said that Bishop Henning was critical in cultivating a missionary spirit among the diocese’s 500,000 Spanish-speaking Catholics.
“He’s been such a great friend and champion of the Hispanic community,” he said. “He’s got a great charism with the Hispanic community.”
Bishop Barres said that Bishop Henning is also a great champion of Catholic education.
“He was in the engine room on all of our efforts in terms of our Morningstar initiative, in terms of the revitalization of our Catholic elementary schools, which of course have a symbiosis with our Catholic high schools.”
He said that Bishop Henning was always at the center of it, being a bridge between pastors and principals, and having a good sense of the analytics of the firm that the diocese was working with.
Father Lachlan T. Cameron, a former seminary student of Bishop Henning who is now stepping into his role as vicar for clergy and pastoral planning, said his former professor always had a kind and encouraging word for the seminarians, noting that he understood the pressures of discernment, of study, and of just being together in the house.
“He had a generosity of spirit and was always available to us in the house,” Father Lachlan said. “He and some of the other faculty members would play sports with us, showing a real fraternal side of the priesthood, and just how he lived it among faculty and how he desired to be our teacher and impart knowledge to us, but really the priesthood itself and how he lived it.
Father Lachlan had an opportunity to work with Bishop Henning on a book, “Christ Our Hope: Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Journey to the United States and visit to the United Nations, April 15-20, 2008.”
The book was produced in real time during the pontiff’s visit, with stories each wrote during the visit.
“He has a wise heart, a compassionate heart, and just a fatherly heart for us. He’s incredibly insightful and wise,” Father Lachlan said.
“He himself has a great wisdom, but it’s that network that he’s cultivated, just through friendship and respect and courtesy, and it’s a sign of his kindness.”
Bishop Henning celebrated his final Mass in the diocese at St. Patrick on a Sunday morning. The church was filled to capacity and the parish hosted a well-attended farewell reception afterward.
“I’m happy for Providence, but just sad for us,” said St. Patrick Pastor Sean Gann.
Joan Dlouhy, a St. Patrick Church, Bayshore, parishioner who has known Bishop Henning for about the last 13 of her 30 years at the parish, said that she and her husband Barry share many common interests with Bishop Henning.
“We’re boat people, too,” she said, of their shared love of being out on the water. “We have our common interests in addition to our faith.”
“He’s just so engaging, and he’s funny. He’s very bright, and I think you have to be bright in order to be funny. And he can take the Scripture and make it relevant. We really are going to miss him; he’s done so much for us. The people in Providence are really going to enjoy him. You are all blessed. He’s so approachable.”