'It has really been something'
ASHEBORO — For a man who once thought he wanted to be doctor, the past 35 years serving as a priest have given Father Michael Klepacki an opportunity to bring healing of a spiritual kind to men and women around the globe.
It has been quite an adventure for this Asheboro native and former parishioner at St. Joseph Church who was ordained to the priesthood in the Diocese of Charlotte at St. Joseph Church on Holy Thursday in 1978 by then Bishop Michael F. Begley.
Father Klepacki began his priestly ministry at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro, then served as pastor in Spruce Pine, Burnsville and Linville before moving to St. Joan of Arc Church in Asheville, where he spent another six years. Then his vocation took him out of the diocese: he became a chaplain with the U.S. Navy.
For 22 years he traveled the world with the Navy and the Marines – going to Japan, the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Spain, Turkey, Greece, the Persian Gulf and Guam – as well as serving at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, on the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, on the USS Bataan aircraft carrier in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Va.
"We'd get on the helicopters (from the USS Baton after Hurricane Katrina) and fly all day and all evening into New Orleans the first six weeks after the hurricane," he recalls. "That was terrible ... I'm a critical instant stress debriefer, and I would fly on the missions and at night I would debrief all the flight crews and the rescue squads."
During his military career Father Klepacki also took helicopters to go from ship to ship to celebrate Mass for the men and women in uniform. And he often slept on the ground just like the troops serving both at home and overseas.
"Sleeping on the ground on a rock at Camp Lejuene is the same as sleeping on the ground in Romania," Father Klepacki jokes as he fondly remembers his military service.
He also headed up a new office at the Navy, serving as the commanding officer of a fleet ministry program, training and assigning 22 chaplains to ships and battle groups for the deployed and enlisted religious programs.
His last overseas appointment took him to Guam, where he was the force chaplain for the Naval region there.
Father Klepacki is back in the Charlotte diocese now, filling in at parishes all over the western half of North Carolina and doing something he says he's always wanted to do: helping out his brother priests.
"It's so good to be back home! I've always had a desire to be a priest for priests somehow. So what I do is cover parishes when the priests need to get away, when they're sick, so every weekend I am usually somewhere different."
He says he enjoys meeting parishioners at the diverse parishes he visits.
"I get to see so many people, which is great! It's neat – it's like having multiple parishes."
Father Klepacki likes remaining active and being a help to other priests.
He also offers a bit of advice for the laity and also for men discerning a call to the priesthood:
"If you see someone who you think might have a vocation, bring it up with them," he says. That's what happened to him, when he switched from eyeing a medical career to a priestly vocation after a Baptist preacher once encouraged him to pursue the priesthood if he was feeling called to it.
He adds, "And if you are a man who feels you may have a vocation, seek out a priest you feel comfortable with. See what they do. Take a trip to a seminary. Find someone you can talk to. Don't keep it inside."
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
NEW YORK — The Redemptorists offer prayers of thanks to God for their confreres who are celebrating jubilee anniversaries of ordination to the priesthood this year, including Redemptorist Father Michael Hopkins, who served as pastor of St. James the Greater Church in Concord from 1981 to 1987. Father Hopkins is marking his 50th anniversary as a priest.
He was born on April 6, 1937, in Brooklyn, N.Y., and first professed vows as a Redemptorist on Aug. 2, 1958. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 23, 1963. His first assignments after ordination were to Sacred Heart of Jesus in Baltimore from 1965 to 1968; St. Boniface in Philadelphia from 1968 to 1969; St. Gregory in North East, Pa., from 1969 to 1973; and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Bradford, Vt., from 1973 to 1976. In 1976 he was assigned as a mission preacher for two years, spending most of his time in the Redemptorists' Vice Province of Richmond, which covers the Southeast. In 1978 he was assigned to St. Joseph in Hampton, Va., and in 1979 he was appointed pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Salem, Va.
He also served as pastor of Holy Rosary in Jacksonville, Fla., from 1987 to 1993. He returned to the Baltimore Province in 1993 with an assignment to the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston. In 1996 he began a three-year assignment to St. Patrick in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He returned to the U.S. in July 1999 and was assigned to St. Peter the Apostle in Philadelphia. In 2005, he relocated to Brooklyn, where he served as province secretary until 2008. He has been in residence at the Redemptorists' residence in New York City since 2008.
The Redemptorists were founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori in 1732 in Naples, Italy. The priests and brothers minister to the spiritual and material needs of the faithful, especially the poor and most spiritually abandoned. Their primary ministry is preaching. There are approximately 300 Redemptorists serving in the U.S., and approximately 5,300 worldwide.
The Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists maintains its headquarters in Brooklyn. The province was created in 1850 and took its name from its home city of Baltimore. The name was retained when the headquarters relocated to New York. For details about the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province, visit redemptorists.net.
— Stephanie K. Tracy
GREENSBORO — It has been two decades since Father Eric Kowalski, pastor of Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro, was ordained to the priesthood in Newark, N.J., by then-Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick.
Over the course of the past 20 years, Father Kowalski has served the Diocese of Charlotte first as parochial vicar at Our Lady of Grace Church, then as pastor of Holy Angels Church in Mt. Airy, before returning to Our Lady of Grace Church as pastor last year.
He has greatly enjoyed "being present to people in their sacramental moments – when they are most open and ready to meet the Lord and to experience His healing presence and mercy through the sacraments of His Church."
Father Kowalski also enjoys preaching and offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in both the ordinary and extraordinary forms.
"The biggest lesson I learned over the past 20 years is how important it is to trust God – that as much as I would like to think I'm in charge, He's the one who really is in charge, and how much better my life is if I remember that, learn humility and patience, and then get out of His way and let Him use me to accomplish His Will in my life and in the lives of those with whom I am blessed to come into contact."
He offers advice to men discerning a call to the priesthood, reminding them to "always keep in mind that the vocation they have received, if it's truly a vocation to priesthood or religious life, is just that – a calling from God and as such it's between that person and God and will always be between them. It's a personal bond and connection. It's a vocation, not a career in the secular sense."
Father Kowalski notes that Pope Francis reiterated that same concept recently.
"If I had tried to 'plan' my priesthood as some do in the same way one would plan out their career path with a company, I would have missed out on so many blessings that God was trying to impart, and I wouldn't be where I am today."
"Has every experience been easy or convenient? No. But I believe each was necessary," Father Kowalski explains. "Don't worry about packing your luggage. Trust God enough to go where He wants and needs you to when He manifests His Will to you, and let Him worry about getting your luggage there. He has always gotten me there and given me everything I've needed, when I needed it."
Other priests celebrating jubilees are: Father John D. Hanic, pastor at St. John Baptist de la Salle in Wilkesboro, 30 years; and Father Vang Tran at St. James the Greater Church in Concord, 30 years.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
ALLEGANY, N.Y. — Sixty years ago on May 14, 1953, Monsignor Thomas Walsh was ordained to the priesthood at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro. Just a few short years before, Monsignor Walsh didn't even know anything about North Carolina. But when his home diocese of Buffalo, N.Y., turned down his application due to an overflow of priests in the region at that time, he turned to Franciscan Father Thomas Plassman, president of St. Bonaventure College, for ideas.
Father Plassmann recommended North Carolina and told Monsignor Walsh he'd "give him a good reference."
Raleigh Bishop Vincent S. Waters accepted him and expected great things from the young man from the North. He was assigned to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Newton Grove in eastern North Carolina, where he was given the directive to enforce desegregation in the little parish church.
"I was among the first priests who were asked to uphold desegregation in the Church," Monsignor Walsh recalls. "Bishop Waters wanted desegregation."
This was quite a challenge for the Yankee who was new to the social and cultural environment of the South. He was made a pastor very early in his priestly ministry and it was difficult to overcome the social behaviors of segregation ingrained in his parishioners, he remembers.
"For Yankees, the South was very different. There were lots of Catholics moving to the South. I had to get used to the native Catholics, the Southerners. They were very welcoming, wonderful people, though."
He remembers how difficult it was at first helping African-American and white parishioners feel comfortable sitting next to each other in the pews – something that they had not done up until that point.
"They used to sit, the blacks on one side of the aisle, the whites on the other. It took a while for them to feel comfortable sitting near each other. That was a very important experience in my life, very challenging," Monsignor Walsh says.
Over the course of six decades, Monsignor Walsh believes he served in more than 30 parishes all around North Carolina including Immaculate Conception Church in Durham, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in High Point, Sacred Heart Church in Wadesboro, St. Eugene Church in Asheville, Holy Family Church in Clemmons and St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte.
His favorite parishes, he says, were the ones were in the North Carolina mountains.
"It's to me the most beautiful part of the state. I was very comfortable there."
His last assignment before retiring back up north to his hometown of Allegany was St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte.
"That was the most urban parish I ever served in," he says.
He has advice for seminarians and men discerning a call to the priesthood, especially if they are not from this diocese:
"Remember this is still very much a culture that is different from the North. Be open. Be accepting. Adjust to it. Be open to learning about another culture and be accepting of others. That is important."
Monsignor Walsh celebrated his 60th anniversary of ordination by going out to dinner with his family in Allegany on May 14.
Other jubilarians we congratulate this week are: Father Edward Sheridan, retired, 50 years; Father Morris Boyd, parochial vicar at St. Lawrence Basilica in Asheville, 35 years; Father Ken Whittington, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Church in Morganton, 25 years; and Father Eric Kowalski, pastor of Our Lady of Grace in Greensboro, 20 years.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
HUNTERSVILLE — As Monsignor Richard Bellow, pastor of St. Mark Church, prepares to retire after 43 years of priestly ministry he can attest that God has a beautiful way of bringing us back to where we began as He closes certain chapters in our lives.
Monsignor Bellow began his priestly ministry as a Franciscan 43 years ago, teaching religion and offering guidance to 245 sophomore boys in Bishop Canevin High School in Pittsburgh, Pa., after his ordination on May 30, 1970.
Fast forward to 2013, and you see Monsignor Bellow again serving as an educator, walking the halls of St. Mark School teaching eighth-grade religion prior to his retirement this July.
"Forty-three years ago I was ordained a priest, and I remember it if it were yesterday," Monsignor Bellow says.
He just came back from a retreat at a Trappist monastery in Pennsylvania where he says he "went to reflect on what the Lord has been able to accomplish in me."
During the course of his priesthood, Monsignor Bellow served at parishes in New Jersey and upstate New York before serving as director of St. Francis Seminary in Staten Island, New York. Then, in 1987, he made the move to the Diocese of Charlotte. He served as pastor of St. John Neumann Church in Charlotte to be closer to his ailing mother.
After 10 years, Monsignor Bellow became a diocesan priest and served with Father Edward Sheridan at St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte, one of the largest parishes in the diocese and the largest parish he'd ever been in at that point in his priesthood.
"Since arriving here in 1987, I have seen how the diocese has grown – in terms of Catholics and in terms of what the Church has accomplished."
On the Feast of St. Francis, Oct. 4, 2002, Bishop William G. Curlin conferred the title of Chaplain of His Holiness upon him and he became Monsignor Bellow.
Since 2004, Monsignor Bellow has served as pastor of St. Mark Church in Huntersville, steering the second-largest parish in the diocese with more than 4,850 registered families.
"I didn't even know where Huntersville was. I had to pull out a map to find it," he says, chuckling.
Monsignor Bellow helped guide the construction of a new church building which was dedicated in August 2009, culminating a 12-year dream for parishioners who began their journey celebrating Mass in a bowling alley.
"God has been good to me here at St. Mark," he says. "We finally did something I never did before in my life. We worked hard to build a church."
Many of the sacred items that adorn the sanctuary of the new church building are from the Franciscan seminary where he received his formation. The altar, ambo, presider's chair and crucifix bring back pleasant memories.
"This combines my Franciscan priesthood and my diocesan priesthood," he explains.
Monsignor shared that the day Bishop Peter J. Jugis came to dedicate the new church was "a glorious day! A great gift from God."
Monsignor is also very proud that Perpetual Adoration is now offered in the chapel at St. Mark.
"On the Feast of Corpus Christi, we celebrated our third anniversary. It has been a blessing. I myself have felt the power of this blessing and many people have attested to the power of this blessing.
"If God wants me to be remembered for one thing, that's what I want to be remembered for: being the pastor here when God did this good work in us."
So, now that retirement approaches, what is a priest so active for four decades, to do?
"My plan is to not have a plan," Monsignor Bellow says. "I'm going to take it day by day. I'm going to let the Lord tell me what He wants me to do and listen to Him.
"I'm not retiring from the priesthood. I look forward to staying in the diocese and being with my brother priests in a different capacity. My ministry will hopefully become more active, but in a different way."
Monsignor Bellow said he also plans on going on a month-long retreat first, to relax and rejuvenate himself and reconnect with God.
He wants to express his gratitude to all those who helped him in his priestly ministry.
He is especially grateful to the three bishops who have supported him since his arrival in the diocese in 1987; Bishop John F. Donoghue (deceased), Bishop Emeritus William G. Curlin and Bishop Peter J. Jugis.
"I want to thank all the priests who have served with me. They have challenged me with their enthusiasm, which has sometimes maddened me," he says jokingly.
"I also want to thank all of the people who have served on my staff or in ministries or on boards or councils where I have served. If I have ever done well, it is because these people and priests have helped me see the needs of the people of God."
Reflecting over the past 43 years of active priestly ministry, noting that he began as an educator and retires as an educator, Monsignor Bellow simply says, "I've come full circle."
—SueAnn Howell, senior reporter