Paulist priests reflect on a lifetime of service

by Stefani Manowski

	Father Henry J Dooley, C.S.P, then and now

Father Henry J. Dooley, C.S.P.

Celebrating 50 years as a Paulist priest is Father Henry James Dooley. Father Dooley was born on Feb. 16, 1930 in Chicago. He entered the Paulist novitiate on Aug. 25, 1951 and ordained a Paulist priest on May 1, 1958.

Father Dooley’s first priestly assignment took him to the Paulist Center in Boston, where he served in pastoral ministry for a year before heading to St. Paul the Apostle Church in Richardson, Tex. After a year, he stayed in Richardson, but served in the Newman Apostolate at the University of Texas from 1960-62.

Father Dooley headed back to Boston to continue in Newman ministry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served until 1970. He then headed west, and ministered at the Paulist-run Catholic Information Center in San Francisco before going on sabbatical a year later.

Father Dooley returned to campus ministry in 1972 at the St. Thomas More Newman Center at the Ohio State University, where he ministered until 1975. He then headed back to his native Chicago to serve as associate pastor at Old St. Mary’s Church there until 1978.

It was at Old St. Mary’s where he met Father Wilfred Brimley, C.S.P., and tells a story about Father Dooley’s days in Texas. Father Dooley was returning to the parish after a day’s work at the Newman Center when he was pulled over by the police.

“The trooper said, ‘I’m sorry, Reverend, but at the rate of speed you were going, I have to write you a ticket.’ Harry asked, “Well, how fast was I going?” The trooper said, “Let me put it to you this way: you passed the lady I was chasing.’”

Tufts University in Boston beckoned Father Dooley back to campus ministry, where he served for a year. He continued campus ministry, this time at McGill University in Montreal from 1980-81. From 1982-88, Father Dooley ministered from Good Shepherd parish in New York City first as associate pastor, then as a campus minister at the City College of New York. From 1988-93, he was on special assignment ministering outside Paulist foundations, and he attained senior ministry status in 1993. Father Dooley, now 78, resides in a care facility in Boston where he is living with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Preaching was his strong suit,” said Father Brimley, “He was always a good preacher with a dry sense of humor.”

	Father John Kenny, C.S.P, then and now

Father John J. Kenny, C.S.P.

Golden jubilarian Father John J. Kenny, C.S.P., is a prime example that vocations talks work. As a student in an Irish Christian Brothers high school in his native Chicago, the young John Kenny was enthralled by the stories of Paulist trailer missions home-based in Tennessee.

“It sounded so interesting and exciting to go into Protestant Tennessee and be a missionary in America,” said Father Kenny, who turns 77 in September. “It looked like a barrel of fun!”

The teen soon visited Old St. Mary’s Church, the first Catholic parish in Chicago served by the Paulists since 1903.

“I found myself serving as an acolyte at the solemn high Mass with the Paulist Choristers singing,” Father Kenny reminisced with a chuckle.

Wanting to wait until after high school to enter priestly formation, the future priest entered the Paulist novitiate, then at Mount Paul in Oak Ridge, N.J., on Sept. 6, 1951.

He then attended St. Peter’s Seminary in Baltimore, and went on to the Paulist’s St. Paul’s College in Washington, D.C.

Father Kenny returned to St. Peter’s as a faculty member after his ordination to the Paulist priesthood on May 1, 1958. In 1966, Father Kenny began ministering at the Newman Center of Boston University until he became the superior and director of the Catholic Information Center in Grand Rapids, Mich. He returned to campus ministry from 1978-84 at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Then it was on to Boulder, Col., where Father Kenny served as superior from 1984-92.

The next step on Father Kenny’s priestly journey took him on sabbatical to the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, staffed by the Paulists. Upon returning stateside, Father Kenny spent a few months at the Paulist-run Newman Center at U.C.L.A. before a six year stint at Clemson University in South Carolina beginning in 1993. In January 2000, Father Kenny returned as an associate in Grand Rapids, where he officially entered senior ministry status on July 1.

“That means I can do what I want to do and not do what I don’t want to do,” he said with a hearty laugh, but noting that he will still teach Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults classes and the like.

Welcoming people into the church has been the best part of the Paulist priesthood for Father Kenny.

“I like preparing the people to enter the church and helping them on their way,” he said, noting that the has done so for some 330 of the faithful.

“The Paulist life has been good to me,” he said. “It has been a great life.”

	Father Gregory S. Apparcel, C.S.P, then and now

Father Gregory S. Apparcel, C.S.P.

After being raised in a town outside of Hollywood, it was probably easy for a young Gregory Apparcel to get bit by the movie bug, which ultimately led him to the Paulists.

As an undergraduate film student at U.C.L.A., the future priest first came into contact with the Paulists at the University Catholic Center on campus. He went on to graduate school in public health education there and became even more involved, participating in retreats, liturgy and hospitality as well as serving as a student coordinator. He entered the Paulist seminary in 1978 and earned a master’s degree in theology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before his ordination in 1983.

What attracted him to the Paulist priesthood was the “invitation to be part of a larger Catholic community; inspiration in living the ideals of the Second Vatican Council, especially the participation of the laity,” he said, as well as “inspiring preaching; assistance in becoming myself; and, not only the expressed invitation to give of myself, but to recognize the gifts and talents I had been given.”

Father Apparcel’s first assignment was as chaplain at St. Andrew’s at Clemson University in South Carolina from 1983-86. He then served as associate pastor at Old St. Mary’s in San Francisco from 1986-92 while also earning a third master’s degree in pastoral liturgy from Santa Clara University.

In 1992, Father Apparcel headed to Paulist Productions in Los Angeles, where he facilitated Humanitas master writer’s workshops and assisted in casting the motion picture “Entertaining Angels,” a film about the early life of Catholic social activist Dorothy Day.

Father Apparcel then became vice rector of Santa Susanna, the Paulist-run American church in Rome. He returned to Paulist Productions as vice president in 2003, where he assisted in the research, selling and making of religious films and documentaries for television. He returned to Rome to become the 11th rector of Santa Susanna in 2004, where he continues to minister.

In April 2005, Father Apparcel assisted CNN International in covering the days following the death of Pope John Paul II including the funeral, the opening of the conclave and the announcement of Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Apparcel said the Paulists have “given me a place to be myself, to give of myself, to feel that my life and what I do is worthwhile and important. It is has given me a home and community. The Paulists have given me opportunities that I would never have thought possible in my wildest dreams.”

	Father Charles E. Cunniff, C.S.P, then and now

Father Charles E. Cunniff III, C.S.P.

Like his classmate, Father Cunniff also discovered the Paulists through campus ministry, but this time at the University of Connecticut – Storrs in 1969. It was a turbulent time on college campuses, in the U.S. and in the Catholic Church.

“On campus, the Spring of Discontent (1970) brought protests concerning the Vietnam War, racism and how the university taught/handled life within its "walls" to campuses across the nation,” Father Cunniff recalled. “In the Catholic Church the liturgical changes called for by the Second Vatican Council were ongoing. “

After stints in Colorado and Alaska, Father Cunniff felt the call to the priesthood, and realized he and the Paulists were a good match.

“My experience of the many Paulists … I encountered during my time at UCONN offered me the insight that while the Paulists are a religious community of priests, we are also individuals with our own personalities and outlooks on life, the world and ministry within the Catholic Church,” he said. “The combination of how I saw the Paulists serving as campus ministers and where the Paulists ministered at the time, sold me on the fact that if I was going to be a priest, it would be as a Paulist.”

After his ordination in 1983, Father Cunniff’s first assignment took him to Toronto from 1983-84. He then worked in campus ministry at John XXIII University Parish at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from 1984-89 before becoming associate pastor at St. Austin in Austin, Tex., from 1989-94. It was then on Boston, where Father Cunniff became director of the Catholic Center at Boston University from 1994-99. Father Cunniff took a year’s sabbatical before serving as associate director of the Catholic Information Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., beginning in 2000. His current assignment is at the St. Thomas More Newman Center of the Ohio State University in Columbus.

“At each and every place on my missionary journey as a Paulist … I have been blessed with the challenge of having to answer people's questions about why life as a Christian, particularly a Catholic, is one that should be chosen or lived,” Father Cunniff said. “I am never alone in this "preaching" or sharing of the Good News, for there are people all around me who walk the same path of faith as I do and they support the mission of the Paulist Fathers.”

	Father James F. Wiesner, C.S.P, then and now

Father James F. Wiesner, C.S.P.

The Holy Spirit just would not let Jim Wiesner alone. “It all sounds so corny,” he said. “I asked God what should I do. God said be my priest.”

As he began looking at the priesthood, it came to be vocation Sunday, and the future priest filled out a post card requesting information from religious orders. The young Jim Wiesner was impressed by the materials he received the Paulists and the variety of the ministries in which they were engaged.

“They went on my short list,” he said. Living in an area south of Baltimore at the time, then-vocation director Father Frank DeSiano, C.S.P., suggested the candidate talk to some of the Paulists at St. Paul’s College in Washington, D.C.

“The more I looked at other options and the more time I spent with the Paulists, the more time I spent with the Paulists, the more ‘attractive’ the individuals became,” Father Wiesner said, noting that he spent a number of weekends at St. Paul’s as well as a vocation retreat at Mount Paul in New Jersey. “The more I looked, the more I liked.”

He entered the Paulist novitiate in September 1978 and was ordained on May 21, 1983.

Father Wiesner’s first priestly assignment was as a staff member of the Paulist Center in Boston. In 1986, he entered campus ministry at Newman Hall-Holy Spirit parish of the University of California – Berkeley. Father Wiesner then became associate pastor at St. Paul the Apostle in Greensboro, N.C., in 1989 before becoming pastor of St. Lawrence Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis in 1991. In 1998, he became the pastor of St. Patrick in Memphis, and now serves as pastor of St. Austin Church in Austin, Tex.

Father Wiesner looks forward to “whatever God has in mind,” watching his great nephews and nieces grow and working on the consistency of his golf game.

“I said yes to God,” said Father Wiesner. “Jesus was/is right, and the Spirit continues to guide. I’ve always been taken with the sacramental understanding of marriage- ‘and the two shall become one.’ Like so many of my Paulist brothers, I have learned the ‘becoming’ of a priest requires the people of God. I trust and believe this ‘becoming’ doesn't end in this life. We grow or we die.”

Read past Paulist Profiles here