Archive for the ‘Parishes’ Category

For six years, Filipino Jesuit Father Rene Tacastacas juggled his time as a student and a priest in the United States.

“The experience was very enriching,” Fr. Tacastacas said of the years he spent working on a doctorate degree in rural sociology and at the same time organizing Catholic communities in remote Missouri villages, where he became well-loved. In May, he received the Outstanding Graduate Student Service Award upon his graduation from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Tacastacas was parish priest of the remote town of Titay in the Philippines, but after being named vocation director, his Jesuit superiors sent him to the United States in 2005 to pursue further studies.

“I needed the know-how to pursue rural development, especially involving work with small farmers in the countryside,” said Tacastacas.

When he flew to Missouri in August 2005, his mission was clear: study hard so he could help in the Jesuits’ mission to assist Filipino farmers. Tacastacas specialized in food and agriculture.

In his first few weeks in the U.S., Tacastacas felt lonely, so he volunteered to substitute for any priest who was not available.

Soon, he was being sent to remote towns in Missouri, and he found his purest joys as a priest and as a student in the far-flung communities.

In these towns, he would visit the farms, where he gained first-hand experience in American farming that helped him put into shape his doctoral research’s focus on small vegetable farming.

“Getting to know the farmer-parishioners allowed me to view my studies as primarily directed towards helping small farmers back home,” he said.

“There was no disconnect between my priesthood and my being a student,” said Tacastacas.

Read more about Tacastacas’ time in Missouri at Inquirer News.

Jesuit Father Kevin O’Connell came to Amman, Jordan 13 years ago to minister at the Sacred Heart Parish. Through an agreement between the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Provincial Superior of the Jesuits of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus, a “personal parish” was established for English-speaking Roman Catholics residing in or visiting Amman. Fr. O’Connell, a scripture scholar with archaeological experience in the Middle East and a former college president, was appointed its first pastor.

Today, O’Connell finds himself ministering to a congregation that is largely compromised of Filipinos who live in Jordan as domestic workers. He recognizes the challenge of being foreigners working in a land very different from their own, as he is doing the same, and he helps provide spiritual support to them while they are far away from their families and homeland. “Suddenly, I found myself, with my Asian population, as a missionary here,” explains O’Connell. “I’ve had to develop this more welcoming attitude and I think it’s been good for me as a person. And that’s a Jesuit thing – we have to learn to adapt to the needs of the local community.”

In the video piece below, Fr. O’Connell discusses his ministry in Jordan:

Jesuit Father Kevin O’Connell came to Amman, Jordan 13 years ago to minister at the Sacred Heart Parish. Through an agreement between the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Provincial Superior of the Jesuits of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus, a “personal parish” was established for English-speaking Roman Catholics residing in or visiting Amman. Fr. O’Connell, a scripture scholar with archaeological experience in the Middle East and a former college president, was appointed its first pastor.

Today, O’Connell finds himself ministering to a congregation that is largely compromised of Filipinos who live in Jordan as domestic workers. He recognizes the challenge of being foreigners working in a land very different from their own, as he is doing the same, and he helps provide spiritual support to them while they are far away from their families and homeland. “Suddenly, I found myself, with my Asian population, as a missionary here,” explains O’Connell. “I’ve had to develop this more welcoming attitude and I think it’s been good for me as a person. And that’s a Jesuit thing – we have to learn to adapt to the needs of the local community.”

In the video piece below, Fr. O’Connell discusses his ministry in Jordan:

From left, San Andres parishioners Norman Goddard and Elaine Blasgen, Jesuit Father Joseph Rooney, pastor; and parishioner Tom Blasgen pose with the parish's new processional cross.

Twenty years ago, Jesuit Father Joseph S. Rooney was a physics professor at Fordham University in the Bronx, and in need of a summer assignment. Volunteering to fill in for priests of the Diocese of Salt Lake City who were away on vacation, Fr. Rooney saw an opportunity to do some apostolic work, but also focus on his hobby of photography.

“My motivation was, give me some apostolic work to do, but my hobby is photography, and this is a pretty state for taking pictures,” he said.

What he saw through the camera lens and in the people he served kept him coming back. During his many summers of service, Rooney served at almost every parish in southern Utah. When it came time for him to retire from teaching physics, Rooney knew exactly where he wanted to serve next; the Oregon Province of Jesuits provincial agreed that Fr. Rooney could help in the Diocese of Salt Lake City for a couple of years.

“And so here it is 14 years later and that ‘couple of years’ is still going,” Fr. Rooney said with a laugh.

Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald, the diocese’s vicar general, said Fr. Rooney brings to Utah not only his faith, but also enthusiasm. “He certainly has the interest and the well-being of the people at heart and is willing to work for them,” he said. “I find him very generous in terms of responding to the needs of the people.”

“There’s a need for a Catholic priest here,” said Fr. Rooney, pointing out that there are 278 registered families in his entire parish, San Andres, which geographically covers an area so large that in contrast there are about 200 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wards in the same area; each ward has about 200 families. “There is an apostolic need.”

Although at 77 he is past retirement age, he continues working because “I’m supposed to be, just by my vows as a Jesuit, a person for others,” he said. “Eventually my health will force me out of it, but until that time occurs, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do it.”

To read the full article about the work of Father Rooney, please visit the Intermountain Catholic.

As a priest who is now totally immersed in ministry to Hispanics, Jesuit Father Shay Auerbach said that his introduction to it was “a quirk of fate.”

“I’d just received a licentiate in liturgy and knew I would be going to a parish for two years,” he said.

The parish was St. Raphael’s in Raleigh, N.C., which had seen a recent increase in Hispanics.

“We need somebody to say Mass in Spanish. Can you read the Mass in Spanish?” Fr. Auerbach remembers the pastor asking him soon after his arrival.

“That began a whole new chapter in my life,” he recalls, adding that his stay of two years he began in 1999 ended up being six and a half years. The parish had 4,000 registered families.

At St. Raphael’s he helped establish the new Hispanic community.

“It had started a year before I got there,” Auerbach said. “By the time I left the parish would have 1,300 to 1,400 Hispanics for Mass on a weekend.”

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