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
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