St. Vincent de Paul Church

REVEREND MONSIGNOR HARRY G. SCHLITT
June 1939- November 24, 2022

We are saddened to announce that Msgr. Harry Schlitt passed away peacefully in his sleep on Thanksgiving day. We offer our prayers for him to rest in the peace of Christ. Let us also remember to pray for his family so that they will be comforted in God's love and care. Details of his arrangements will be shared with the parish community once they are settled.
 

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Father Harry has been telling stories most of his life. Precocious as a child, Harry George Schlitt was the youngest in a blue-collar German Catholic family, raised in southern Missouri along the Mississippi River among myriad aunts and uncles, and cousins. A natural athlete, thespian, and all-around good guy, he lacked academic prowess. In a remarkable twist of fate, he found himself transported from rural America on a full scholarship to study in Rome, where he was ordained a priest in 1964.

Short on theology but long on charisma, he began a ministry that moved from the high school classroom to the pulpit, to the airwaves. His first broadcasting gig was as a disc jockey on AM radio in the Ozarks. An improbable series of encounters led him to work at Chicago's legendary WLS-TV, FM radio in Las Vegas, every leading radio and TV station in San Francisco, twenty years on the Armed Forces Radio and Television network, and ultimately the ABC radio network as Father Harry of the God Squad. He has written thousands of radio scripts and television monologues, more sermons than he can count, and numerous official letters to the many institutions of the Roman Catholic Church.

Retired as Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia from the Archdiocese of San Francisco after fifty years of priesthood, Monsignor Schlitt lived in San Francisco where he played handball and continued to work as a broadcaster presenting the Sunday Mass on TV each week.

St. Vincent de Paul
2022 Archdiocesan Annual Appeal

50.8% achieved by 82 Donors