Father Patrick Cahill says goodbye to parishioners after 14 years serving as pastor at St. Eugene Parish in Asheville before moving to his new assignment as pastor of St. Matthew Parish in Charlotte. (Photos provided)CHARLOTTE — Summer is a time of big changes for priests and parishes in the Diocese of Charlotte. It’s the season when priests move to new assignments at parishes, schools and ministries.
This year’s parish assignments were announced in June and took effect at noon on July 8. A total of 33 priests were reassigned, took a sabbatical or retired this year.
In the weeks leading up to July 8, many attended farewell receptions and went through the emotion of celebrating their last Masses for parishioners they have come to know well over the years.
They then packed up their belongings and moved into their new offices and rectories and started the process of meeting new staff and parishioners.
It’s both a challenging and joyful time, filled with the mixed feelings of saying goodbye to old friends and familiar territory and the excitement of beginning a new phase of ministry.
That full range of emotions was evident in the experience of Father Patrick Cahill, who moved to a new assignment as pastor of St. Matthew Parish in Charlotte after 14 years as pastor at St. Eugene Parish in Asheville.
It is a homecoming of sorts for him, because he served as parochial vicar at St. Matthew, one of the largest Catholic churches in the United States, in one of his first assignments after his ordination.
“This is a happy, joyful and exciting time for me, because I feel like I’m tapping into that joy I felt when I was first ordained,” Father Cahill said. “St. Matthew has evolved and changed since I was first here, and I’m now moving to a church that is 10 times the size of the parish I was serving at St. Eugene. I look forward to the good I’m going to be able to do here.”
Father Cahill celebrated his first Mass at St. Matthew early on July 9 and was happy to see more than 100 people turn out. He also was happy to welcome his parents, who drove in from Atlanta to attend his first Sunday Mass there on July 13.
Leaving St. Eugene after 14 years was bittersweet because of the relationships he’d built and the challenges they all had weathered together, which included Tropical Storm Helene.
“I get emotional thinking about it because leaving a place means closing that chapter and season of your life, leaving a place you’ve poured heart and soul into,” Father Cahill said. “Fourteen years there was roughly one-third of my life, and you go through a lot together when you’re at a parish that long.”
He looks with pride on several parish accomplishments: completing additions to Asheville Catholic School, welcoming a growing Hispanic community, and facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and Tropical Storm Helene while emerging stronger after both.
Elsewhere around the diocese, parishes said goodbye to their priests in a variety of special ways.
Parishioners at St. Lawrence Basilica bid farewell to Father Nohé Torres, who was leaving to become pastor at Holy Infant Parish in Reidsville, with a celebration featuring gifts and a cake. After Sunday Mass, Monsignor Roger Arnsparger, St. Lawrence’s pastor and rector, took Father Torres and staff members to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Asheville, where they reminisced about his time at the basilica.
Father Elliot Suttle got a little help packing from the Knights of Columbus. Before setting out for Shelby to become pastor of St. Mary Help of Christians Parish, he ended up adding one more item to his packed belongings: a framed picture of one of the stained-glass windows in Our Lady of Grace in Greensboro from parishioner Bob Braden.
“Personally, I have mixed feelings about Father Suttle leaving us. First and foremost, he will be greatly missed at Our Lady of Grace Church, and he did a wonderful job integrating himself into our church community over the past year,” said the parish’s Operations Director Charles Longino. “But I know it must be a great joy for Father Suttle to have been assigned to a parish in his hometown. This would probably be a dream come true for many priests, and I can’t think of anyone who is more deserving of this.”
As Father Chinonso Nnebe-Agumadu said while he was moving boxes into his new office at Charlotte Catholic High School to take on the chaplaincy there and assist at St. Matthew, “I’m excited to see how God works through me and works through others in my time here.”
— Christina Lee Knauss
