The Rev. Norm Douglas doesn’t spend much time thinking about his legacy. At 77, no one would judge the Catholic priest for slipping quietly into retirement. But not Douglas, or “Father Norm” to those who know him — which is quite a lot of people.
This year marks 50 years since Douglas was ordained. He’s spent all of those years in Northeast Ohio and many of them in Akron. For the past nine years, he’s served as the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish. On Oct. 15, he will be recognized for his five decades of service when he receives the Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award from the Akron Community Foundation.
The annual award is named after the president of the former Polsky’s department store and founding trustee of ACF. It is given to “the individual or couple who best exemplifies Bert Polsky’s selfless dedication to humanitarian causes in Akron.” Past honorees include Vernon Odom Sr., John S. Knight and U.S. Rep. John Seiberling.
It’s an award that marks a distinguished career. For Douglas, that includes a prolific career in the church and several decades with Heart to Heart Leadership. In 1990, Douglas and lawyer Larry Vuillemin founded the nonprofit, which offered leadership development programs to individuals and organizations. Earlier this year, Heart to Heart merged with the United Way of Summit & Medina to create the Center for Immersive Leadership.
But Douglas isn’t ready to rest on his laurels.
“I don’t often think about that,” Douglas said, when asked what he wants his legacy to be. “I live it.”
Douglas came to Catholicism in high school. During his senior year at North High School, he attended church with some friends.
“I got drawn in, and I really saw a joy and a meaning, a purpose in that,” he said of the experience.
Joy comes up a lot in conversation with Douglas. Growing up, it wasn’t an emotion he associated with religion. His mother was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church, which Douglas described as “very serious, very severe.” As a child, he attended a Protestant church, but he stopped going in high school.
With Catholicism, he found an outlet for his joy.
A calling to serve
After high school, Douglas attended the University of Akron. He went through a couple majors before settling on English and graduating in 1969. It was while he was at college that he decided to become a priest.
In 1966, he attended a Catholic retreat. He was still fairly new to Catholicism, but it was there that he felt called to be a priest. Initially, he had his doubts.
“I mean, I’m six weeks a Catholic, I heard God … calling me to be a priest. And I remember thinking, I don’t even know all the holy days. I don’t even know half the Catholic stuff,” Douglas said.
He continued, “I remember kind of saying to God over time, I don’t think I’m serious enough to be a priest. And what I heard the Lord say unto me … I want your joy.”
From that point on, Douglas was set on his decision, but he still wanted to finish college. He recounted the moment he told his mother Elsie. “She was one who would say, ‘Norman, can’t you just join things? Why do you have to get so enthusiastic?’”
She quickly came around, though. “She said, ‘Norman, if that’s what you want, I want it too,’” he said.
The joy Douglas talks about so often comes directly from his mother, who raised him as a single parent for the majority of his childhood. His biological father left when Elsie was pregnant with Douglas. When he was four, she met and married a school teacher from Akron, and the family moved from Los Angeles to Ohio. Although Douglas’ mother and stepfather never divorced, they separated after about three years due to his stepfather’s alcoholism.
Douglas doesn’t shy away from discussing his upbringing, a fact that he admits can be disarming to some people who perhaps have different ideas of what a priest should be. For Douglas, there’s no separating the two. If anything, his difficult childhood helps him better understand and empathize with others.
“The way I grew up actually has had an influence on who I am as a human being and as a priest,” he said. “I didn’t come from an ideal family, and so, for starters, I can understand when people come from all kinds of family issues.”
The power of human connection
For Vuillemin, Douglas’ Heart to Heart co-founder, the priest’s openness and honesty is what drew him in. Vuillemin met Douglas in 1986. Vuillemin, then 35, had recently had a stroke, which caused him to reevaluate and recommit to certain aspects of his life, including his faith. He was raised Catholic but wasn’t practicing at the time. Someone suggested he speak with Douglas. The two instantly connected.
“One thing that Norm is good at as a priest — some people are reserved around priests as you know – but he’s very welcoming,” Vuillemin said. “He had a way of bringing God down to Earth.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Jeremy Lile, who served as the executive director of Heart to Heart for seven years. He now oversees the Center for Immersive Leadership at United Way. Lile said Douglas’ warmth and positive outlook stood out to him.
“I think there was an element of the practical spirituality to him as well. [He] wasn’t judgmental. Even though he’s a Catholic priest, there wasn’t a sense of like, you have to be Catholic to meet with me or have a conversation with me,” Lile said. “He just has a unique way of, I think, connecting with each individual.”
For Douglas, connecting with people is everything for him — not just as a priest or as a community leader, but as a person. When he was ordained, his ordination invitation said, “The call of a Christian is to find joy in bringing joy to others.”
“And that’s been a constant for me,” he said.
Much of that is, of course, bound up in his faith, but Douglas said he never wants to impose his faith on anyone. For him, it’s much simpler.
“Let’s hear each other’s stories and better understand,” he said. “And what a difference that can make.”
Toward the end of the conversation, Douglas recounted a story from his teenage years. He freely admits “he was a brat” at that time in his life, which caused the typical teenager-parent conflicts. During one argument his mother said – and here Douglas knocks his fist on the table for emphasis, “‘I hope some day you use that mouth for good.’”
For 50 years Douglas has done that. And he has no plans to quit.