from the editor Priests - They’re Just Like Us?

Kirsten Shrewsberry, Editor

I CAN’T BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO GREW UP THINKING PRIESTS WERE ONLY EVER PRIESTS AND NEVER ANYONE BEFORE ORDINATION OR EVER DID ANYTHING “NORMAL”. In the same way that the first time you saw your teacher at the grocery store, the first time I saw a priest out of clerics I felt like it was Opposite Day and everyone knew it but me.

When I was in middle school preparing for confirmation, our pastor was a priest named Fr. Paul Passamonti. He had the best homilies, sharing about his life as a young boy growing up in Boston; he was so personable and reassuring. During those long confirmation prep classes, he would randomly drop in to bring us baked goods that he blessed in exchange for a correctly answered question. When I went to confession with him the day before confirmation, I was so scared. So afraid that my sins were unforgivable, that no one could love a sinner like me. I shakily confessed and at the end he paused, and said, “is that it?” I said yes and he laughed, and told me there was so much worse he’d heard, and as long as I was genuinely sorry and made a diligent effort to not sin again, God would forgive me. In such a tumultuous time he was a trusted friend, sharing the Gospel and God’s love with a bunch of angsty tweens.

In my time at St. Joseph here in Shreveport, I’ve gotten to know priests as people, and I’ve met friends who went to seminary and ended up discerning other callings or taking those holy orders that we’ll get to witness Deacons Kelby and Gabriel take later this month. Among our new friends was Fr. Zach Kautzky who was assigned to Holy Family at Barksdale AFB. He married my husband and me, baptized our son, we dog-sat for him, and we were fortunate enough to share many meals while he was still assigned here. He’s the son of a farmer, a brother, and a friend. One of the most profound things he taught me was that men are fallible. We all fall short of the glory of Christ.

We’re all striving for holiness, and sometimes forgiving others when they fall short is part of that journey. I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to meet and know so many clergy. They really are people - just like you and me!

This month is special because two men will be ordained to the priesthood in the Diocese of Shreveport. I hope you join us in praying for these young men, and all of our clergy and religious brothers and sisters. Peace and blessings, friends.

Giving them the option to ask questions, one of the most frequently asked is “when did you know you wanted to be a priest?” There are those who know that I had an uncle who was a priest, and in fact was quite instrumental in facilitating my move from Philadelphia to Arkansas, where I lived with him and got to witness what a priest does from day to day. He was ordained before I was born, and he and I served together in the Diocese of Little Rock for many years. An exemplary priest, he lived to the age of 93, sixtyseven years as a priest.

But the awareness I had that God was calling me to the priesthood was when I was a very young altar server in our parish church in Philadelphia. The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a very large church with an elementary school of over a thousand students, forty religious Sisters of St. Joseph, and five priests assigned to the parish. I remember these priests very well, my pastor of 19 years, Msgr. Nugent, the associate pastors, Father Corrigan, Father McDonough, Father O’Brien, Father Vizzard, and Father