As a youngster, Realbuto underwent speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy but overcame those early limitations, his mother told the Register. A problem with auditory processing remained: He wouldn’t always immediately understand something someone else told him.
“Ryan had to work three times harder than the average kid in order to accomplish the same goal — either in school assignments or in life — because things didn’t just come to him,” his mother said.
Several people who knew Realbuto said he was smart, but deliberate, and would sometimes take a moment to consider things that were said to him and check back later to see if he understood it properly, a strategy to compensate for the difficulty he had.
“But when he got something, he got it in his bones. He understood what it means to be like Jesus and serve others. Everybody was made in the image and likeness of God, and that’s how he was going to live his life,” Gallagher said.
No guile
Realbuto attended St. Bonaventure University, a Franciscan school about two hours away from his home, where he majored in sociology and criminology.
During the summer of 2022, he spent about 10 weeks in a work-study program near the school helping poor people. Mornings, he worked at an organic farm operated by Franciscan sisters, followed by afternoons at The Warming House, a soup kitchen, where he often washed the dishes and was popular with the regulars, said Franciscan Father Stephen Mimnaugh, the university’s vice president for mission integration.
Mimnaugh said he got to know Realbuto at the soup kitchen. He told the Register that he and another friar at the school independently came up with the same description of Ryan: “completely without guile,” echoing Jesus’ description of Nathaniel in John 1:47.
“Ryan was one of the kindest, gentlest, most generous students that I’ve had the privilege of working with. He was just absolutely wonderful and a very thoughtful, sweet young man,” Mimnaugh said.
Realbuto graduated cum laude in May 2023. A vigil at the school is planned for Thursday night in the chapel, with Scripture readings and brief remembrances from students.
He began the Capuchin volunteer program in Washington in August 2023.
He enjoyed the community life with his fellow volunteers and the prayer life overseen by the Capuchins, his mother said.
“Ryan was a joyful guy. He was a simple guy, very kind guy,” Brother Stephen said. “He had one of those really great belly laughs that would make everybody laugh with him.”
Through the Capuchin program, he worked at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School, a Catholic school in nearby Takoma Park, Maryland, that combines work and study. Most of the students are Black or Latino. He helped prepare freshmen for future jobs, according to the school. He also oversaw all students who worked at online jobs at the school’s office in Silver Spring, Maryland.
He told his mother in recent months that he liked Washington and that he wanted to keep working at Don Bosco after the Capuchin program ended if a job became available there because he liked the school so much.
As part of the Capuchin program, he met regularly with Brother Stephen, including during the morning of Monday, Jan. 15, at nearby Capuchin College, where Brother Stephen is studying to become a priest.
“One of the things I told him during our last one-on-one was: ‘The Lord has a special place for you,’” Brother Stephen told the Register. “I don’t know why I said it. Holy Spirit, I guess. I just felt it.”
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
Matt McDonald is a staff reporter for the National Catholic Register and the editor of the New Boston Post.