By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

RANSOM -- There should be another word for "retirement" when it comes to priests. Unlike salesmen, CEOs, engineers, or those of just about any other profession, a priest never stops being a priest.

Although Father David H. Kraus, JCL, recently retired as pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Scott City, and St. Theresa Parish, Dighton, the needs of the Church and the love of many friends — Catholic and otherwise – will, in certain probability, often lull him away before he can get too much R and R.

But that’s okay with him.

"I’ve always enjoyed visiting the sick and the elderly," Father Kraus said from his home in Ransom, which also is the town of his birth. "That’s always been a favorite of mine for some reason. And I’ve always enjoyed preaching. I have the gift of gab."

A charism, more likely, at least when you consider that two entire communities – not just Catholics – came to wish him well at his going away parties, first in Dighton, and then in Scott City.

Father Kraus, a second-generation Kansas native, was born in 1940 to a farm couple – Hugo and Alice — and would eventually be the oldest of five boys and four girls.

"I was 20 years older than my youngest sister," he said. "We’d go to the pasture and bring home baby pheasants and bunnies. Mom was big on animal rights even back in those days, and didn’t let us keep them."

In 1947 the family enjoyed a bumper crop, with wheat selling for $2 a bushel — not a great deal less than what it sells for today. A year later, the family built a new home and bought a 1949 Ford.

Father Kraus graduated valedictorian from Arnold High School ("Being one graduate out of five, that was pretty easy," he said modestly), but instead of giving a traditional valedictorian address, he sang the "Ave Maria."

"[At St. Mary of the Plains] college, I was an actor," he said. "I was ‘Charlie’ in the musical ‘Where’s Charlie?’ and I played a small part in ‘Oklahoma.’

"At Conception Seminary, I was in Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV’; I was Prince John. I was in a play about Thomas Moore; I was one of the bad guys. I used to sing in Great Bend and Dodge City whenever they would do the ‘Messiah.’ I really miss that."

Father Kraus began to consider the priesthood in his youth. "I used to ask nuns what they did, and what the difference was between a priest and a brother. In college, I asked about Church politics and stuff like that. ‘Sister Christian’ told me I’d have to become a priest to find out. That’s what I did."

Amid the backdrop of the Vietnam War, Father Kraus was ordained in 1967 on Trinity Sunday by Bishop Marion F. Forst, and went on to serve at several parishes across Kansas.

"I said [to a congregation], ‘I suppose you’re expecting me to say something about the war in Vietnam,’" he commented. "‘I’m not a historian or a politician. We should pray for our soldiers. I don’t know if it’s important to be for or against the war, but for justice. Justice comes from the Latin word meaning ‘rights.’"

Father Kraus would later celebrate the funeral Mass for a cousin killed in Vietnam.

"It was awful," he said. "He would have been in his early 20s. He got the Silver Star. He gave his life for someone else."

Of the current war, he houses a similar attitude.

"We’ve prayed frequently for everyone, not just the American soldiers. We pray for the powerless everywhere, even in this country."

After speaking with Father Kraus, one can’t help but eventually see revealed an inner hippie, the part that loves the rockumentary, "Woodstock; Three Days of Peace and Music," and the musical, "Hair," and occasionally still rocks out to the music of both.

When asked jokingly if he had ever adopted a hippie style-sense, Father Kraus said there was a time in the early 70s when he let his hair grow and donned a beard. "Shortly after that I had to buy a hair piece," he said, laughing.

From 1987-89 Father Kraus studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he received his J.C.L. degree in canon law, graduating Cum Laude.

"While in Rome I assisted with Holy Communion at the papal masses about 10 times," he said. "And once, I was introduced to Pope John Paul II and shook his hand. I also shook hands with Barbara Bush while I was in Rome, but I think that the Holy Father’s greeting might count for more."

He has also spent time in Egypt, where he toured the Great Pyramids, saw the sphinx, viewed the Valley of the Kings, and cruised the Nile, among other activities. "I still can’t believe I stood in the Great Pyramid," he said. "It’s like a dream, even to this day."

He’s traveled to Greece, where the beauty and history left him transfixed. He’s visited England, Austria, France and Germany, the nation of his ancestors. When asked why he named his email address after the 1970s Mars lander, he responded with a laugh that "Viking1" was an homage to his northern Germany ancestry.