Amuch-loved American priest who adopted the Philippines as his home quietly passed away this week. Fr. James B. Reuter was 96, and he was more than just a Catholic priest who became an honorary Filipino. He was an educator, media communicator, drama and music coach and mentor and friend to countless Filipinos whose lives he touched.

For the tried and true Roman Catholics, he was known as the face and the voice of the Family Rosary Crusade.

He had been in the Philippines since 1938, or an astounding 74 years. Father Reuter has been absent from the scene for the last three years, when poor health and advanced age took its toll and forced him to spend most of his time in a hospital.

Newspaper reports and history books will cite his role in setting up Radyo Bandido at the height of the Edsa People Power Revolt of 1986.

But he was so much more. In the more innocent time before martial law, Father Reuter was known to generations of high school and college kids for the musical plays he liked to direct.

Those plays served as the young generation’s introduction to Broadway musicals. It is not surprising that he set up Radyo Bandido with the help of one of the former students whose talents he nurtured, June Keithley. Many of today’s major stage talents will never forget the role that the American cleric played in their formative years.

Indeed, Fr. James Reuter was a treasure to Philippine education.

It is only fitting therefore that his remains will be buried here, in the land that was not his second home, but his first.