Hensler then pursued theological training at the
St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, earning his Master of Arts there in 1922. and at the
North American College in
Rome,
Italy. He was a pupil of minimum wage proponent,
John A. Ryan. He was formally ordained as a priest at the
Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome on March 15, 1924. After initial ministries at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in
Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania and at St. Brendan's Catholic Church in
Braddock, Pennsylvania, he left for China on August 7, 1930 to help establish the
Catholic University of Peking. His time there was challenging due to political unrest in the region and the escalating conflict between China and Japan, as well as the school's financial instability. By the end of 1933, he was back in Pittsburgh, celebrating Christmas masses as an assistant pastor at St. Lawrence Church. During this period of his life, he also became a founding member of the
Catholic Radical Alliance with two other Roman Catholic priests,
Charles Owen Rice and
George Barry O'Toole. In December 1934, he presented a lecture to the St. Lawrence Parent Teachers' Association, entitled "Human Rights Versus Property Rights." In 1951, he was appointed as the pastor of St. George's Church. In 1958, he became the director of the Institute of Adult Education, which was sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Hensler died at the age of 86 at the North Hills Passavant Hospital on November 21, 1984. Funeral masses were held at St. Wendelin Church in
Carrick, Pennsylvania on November 23 and 24. ==References==