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June 19, 2006 • VOL. 44, NO. 12 • Oakland, CA
Priests celebrate ordination jubilees
Father
Barry Brunsman, OFM
Birthplace:
Phoenix, Arizona
Ordination: Dec. 22, 1956, Old Mission Santa Barbara
Present ministry: Director, St. Francis Retreat Center,
San Juan Bautista
Past service in diocese: Retreat presenter, San Damiano
Retreat Center, Danville. Assistant prison chaplain, Federal Prison, Dublin
When I was 14, I entered the Franciscan seminary to become a priest. I
didn’t have the faintest idea of what I was doing or getting into.
I had a vague notion of helping people. Had I known what was ahead, I
would have been too intimidated to even begin.
My parents were good Catholics. Despite the Depression, their five children
were educated in a parochial school Then by God’s grace I survived
13 years of seminary training. With this background, possessing lots of
theory and little practical experience, I began teaching in a Catholic
high school. Later I was made chaplain of a state hospital, including
the ward for the criminally insane.
Because Franciscans are not confined to a parish, school or institutional
department, our assignments are varied. We have the opportunity to serve
God’s people who live on the margins of society.
After a stint in a parish in Utah, which included serving as a school
bus driver, I was assigned to the Tenderloin area of San Francisco. As
a young friar of 31, I heard stories from prostitutes, strippers, drug
addicts and drunks who found their way to the friary. Next I found myself
going to them in their need, even in the middle of the night.
Because of my high energy, I was also given chaplaincy of the juvenile
correction institution in San Francisco. Then I began ministry to the
divorced and separated through a series of support groups.
When the gay/lesbian community began to look for support and understanding
in the Church, I was too proud to admit I didn’t know anything about
their orientation or mine for that matter. I listened to them closely
so I could understand their way of thinking. All my boyhood prejudices
were soon annihilated.
I grew up in a safe environment which did not prepare me for times when
I had to face the barrel of a gun in the friary parlor, survive a trap
set for me in a tenement house at midnight, and be propositioned and given
life threats.
Though not married, I have participated in natural childbirth for unwed
mothers three times, facilitated several adoptions, began a very large
support group for single parents, and acted as a surrogate father taking
children to the circus.
Most of my priesthood has been with the marginal of the Church and society.
It was not idealism as much as flexibility and a willingness to venture
into the unknown that led me to all of this. I addressed the people and
the problems that were before me.
Spiritually, I can say I have always felt awe when I have offered the
Mass or presided at a baptism or heard a confession. Assuring someone
of God’s personal love and forgiveness and a person’s real
worth was certainly enhanced by being a priest. This was particularly
true for the many broken people whom I have served over the years.
Father
Thomas Prendiville, 
SDB
Birthplace:
Long Beach, California
Ordination: May 26, 1956, Bellflower, California
Present ministry: Director, Don Bosco Hall, Berkeley
Past service in diocese: Administrator, Salesian High
School, Richmond
My 50 years of priesthood, living in the context of 60 years of religious
profession, have been a special grace from God. It is these 60 years of
Salesian life that really define my priesthood. Living together with Salesian
brothers, be they priests or religious Brothers, has shaped my priestly
life and work.
My ministries have been in high school teaching and administration, in
province responsibilities and in formation. Through all these years, the
sacramental life of the Church and the Eucharist have been sure guides
in ministering to God’s people.
God has been good to me in so many ways. We are not called to measure
success or failures over 50 years, but to keep striving to build God’s
kingdom of peace and justice.
Father
Brian Timoney
Birthplace:
Belfast, Ireland
Ordination: May 26, 1956, Bangalore, India
Present ministry: Retired
Past service: Preacher of parish missions and retreats
in India and Ireland. High school administrator and teacher, Bangalore
and Mumbai. Superior, major seminary, Bangalore. Parochial vicar, St.
John, San Lorenzo; Corpus Christi, Piedmont; Christ the King, Pleasant
Hill. Pastor, St. Perpetua, Lafayette; St. John, San Lorenzo; St. Stephen,
Walnut Creek
Father
Jerrold Kennedy
Birthplace:
Oakland, California
Ordination: May 26, 1966, Corpus Christi Church, Piedmont
Present ministry: Pastor, St. Jerome Parish, El Cerrito
Past service: Associate pastor, All Saints, Hayward;
St. Louis Bertrand, Oakland; St. Leo, Oakland. Pastor, Santa Maria, Orinda;
Sacred Heart, Oakland; St. Philip Neri, Alameda; St. Leander, San Leandro.
Secretary to Bishop Floyd L. Begin. Diocesan vocation director. Diocesan
director of campus ministry. Chairperson for re-establishment of permanent
diaconate. Faculty, St. Patrick’s Seminary
I
grew up in St. Leo Parish in Oakland and Corpus Christi in Piedmont. I
attended St. Joseph’s College and then St. Patrick’s Seminary.
My brother Bill and I were ordained priests on May 26, 1966. It was an
exciting time to be a young priest.
First, there were plenty of us around and a lot of camaraderie. We worked
hard and played hard. We had some success in dealing with the new urban
scene. City parishes banded together for the sake of community organization
with a fair degree of success.
My first assignment was at All Saints in Hayward, which was a very big
parish with many, many weddings, funerals and baptisms. From there it
was on to an inner- city assignment at St. Louis Bertrand. In 1969, Msgr.
Nick Connolly was having some health problems and I was given the somewhat
unique chance to return to St. Leo’s as associate pastor. Msgr.
Nick was an easy and kind man to live with.
Special work loomed on the horizon. I went to work for Bishop Begin as
his administrative assistant and director of vocations. I was asked to
serve as chairperson for the re-establishment of the permanent diaconate.
It has been wonderful to see that ministry grow and flourish in our diocese.
Chancery work lasted nine years, carrying over into the time of Bishop
John Cummins. I spent a delightful few years at Santa Maria and three
challenging years at Sacred Heart. Fortunately, I did not have to deal
with the church being destroyed by the Loma Prieta earthquake because
by then I had been assigned to the faculty of St. Patrick’s Seminary.
I was actually at the University of Notre Dame on the day of the quake.
I had to wait until the end of the semester to see what had happened to
my belongings. Very little damage, thank God.
After completing five years on the seminary faculty, I spent eight years
as pastor
of St. Philip Neri. I returned to the Chancery office for another five
years and in July 2004 began a stint as pastor at St. Jerome.
In short, that adds up to 40 years as a priest in the Oakland Diocese.
I have traveled a bit to Ireland, Europe, Mexico, South America and around
the U.S. for various conferences.
I have enjoyed planning some major ecclesiastical events. Producing the
40th anniversary event for our diocese at the Paramount Theater was one
of the most enjoyable.
Father
John R. Morris, O.P.
Birthplace:
Tacoma, Washington
Ordination: June 10, 1966, St. Augustine Church, Oakland
Present ministry: Adjunct associate professor, Saint
Mary’s College of California
Past service in diocese: Assistant, then associate, professor
of theology, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Oakland.
Before entering the Dominican Order I worked for the Boeing Airplane Company
as an aeronautical engineer. My work was in preliminary design, the first
stage in design before something is actually considered for manufacture.
The work was intellectually stimulating and very creative.
Yet, before I realized it, I had discovered that my attraction to the
Dominican Order and the priesthood was greater than a career in engineering,
and I was on my way to the novitiate in Kentfield, California. My dream
of teaching the Catholic Tradition on the same intellectual level as my
engineering background actually came to be an exciting and rewarding reality.
Immediately after completing my doctorate in theology at the Graduate
Theological Union in Berkeley, I began teaching theology, first at St.
Albert’s College at the GTU in Berkeley, and later at St. Mary’s
College in Moraga, and finally at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas
in Rome.
My teaching career has been complimented with rich experiences in two
parishes, both for extensive periods of time. This pastoral experience
has provided a wonderful opportunity in which to preach and it has in
turn given balance to my theological interests and studies.
When my teaching duties come to an end, I would like to devote more time
to pastoral work especially with the Latinos now resident in such great
numbers in California and other places in the Province.
The priesthood has been a wonderful and fulfilling gift and it has provided
me with numerous opportunities to serve in the Church. For this I shall
be forever grateful.
Father
Jose Leon
Birthplace:
Coolidge, Arizona
Ordination: June 5, 1981, St. Anthony Church, Oakland
Present ministry: Pastor, Our Lady of the Rosary Parish,
Union City
Past service: Deacon, St. Anthony Parish, Oakland. Associate
pastor, Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Union City; All Saints, Hayward.
My first recollection of being interested in the priesthood came when
I received my First Communion at the age of eight. The idea stayed with
me and when I wanted to enter the seminary in high school, my mother,
in her infinite wisdom, would not hear of it as she wanted me to have
a normal teenage life.
So when I was 21, I joined the Holy Ghost Fathers and entered their novitiate.
After vows and five years with them, I left because of our Superior General,
Archbishop Lefebre. I knew I would still be a priest.
Later, after teaching high school for 10 years, I came to the GTU in Berkeley
and enrolled at the Jesuit School of Theology.
Eventually, Bishop John Cummins ordained me and I was assigned to Our
Lady of the Rosary Parish in Union City where I stayed as associate pastor
for three years. Then I was sent for one year to All Saints Parish and
then back to Our Lady of the Rosary in 1985 where I have remained for
all these years – 21 years as pastor.
Priesthood has always been the only real vocation. It is who I am and
even with its ups and downs, I have never felt there was any other place
for me. I am and have always been happy in my priesthood.
I feel the most effective in doing the work of God in the Reconciliation
Room. God’s grace seems to be most present in those moments of forgiveness
and absolution. The Eucharist is, of course, the highlight of the priesthood.
Without it, my life would be empty.
In all my years, I have never, even for a moment, regretted my calling.
I feel truly blessed and privileged to be able to serve as a priest all
these years.
Father
Robert J. McCann
Birthplace:
Hicksville, New York
Ordination: Nov. 21, 1981, Hicksville, New York
Present ministry: Pastor, St. Raymond Parish, Dublin;
adjutant judicial vicar, Canon Law/Marriage Tribunal
Past service: Pastor, St. Cyril Parish, Oakland; All
Saints Parish, Hayward; associate pastor, All Saints, Hayward
I thank God for the gift of my vocation and give thanks for the many wonderful
and humbling experiences these past twenty-five years.
Blessed John XXIII was heard to say at the beginning of the Vatican Council
that the people of God would be the salvation for the Church. I have been
awed by the faith, trust and love I have experienced in the people I have
tried to serve as a priest.
I don’t think I have been bored for one single day of the past twenty
five years. I continue to be amazed at the welcome people give me into
the most intimate times of their lives. I pray and hope that I have always
been a reminder of a loving God in their lives. I have marveled in the
joy of new parents presenting their child for baptism or the happiness
of an adult discovering the unconditional love of God in their lives through
an RCIA program. I continue to be energized by the wisdom of a senior
and the care I witness by those who minister to the poor and disenfranchised.
I receive a sense of fulfillment when I feel I am walking with many who
are trying to minister to one another in living out our baptismal calling.
My own faith has again and again been strengthened by the persevering
faith of parents who have lost a child or the many who continue to come
week after week in spite of the weakness of our priests and bishops and
even those who feel rejected in some way by the Church itself.
It has been a joy for me to follow the Lord and wash feet as His example
directs all of us. I pray as I continue to walk this pilgrimage of faith
that I can continue to serve well the people God sends into my ministry.
After twenty-five years I am convinced we are most successful in following
the Gospels when we do it together. I ask you to pray that God will send
people who will continue to bless, challenge and encourage me so that
together we may one day enjoy the Kingdom promised.
Father
Michael Weldon, OFM
Birthplace:
Sigourney, Iowa
Ordination: June 6, 1981, St. Elizabeth Church, Oakland
Present ministry: Director of Spiritual and Human Formation
and associate professor of pastoral studies, Sacred Heart School of Theology,
Hales Corners, Wisconsin.
Past service in diocese: Director of vocations for St.
Barbara Province, St. Elizabeth Church, Oakland. Weekend Mass help, St.
Jerome, El Cerrito. Instructor, Franciscan School of Theology, Berkeley
An evangelical Lutheran pastor friend calls parish ministry “holy
ordering.” Being a priest, and in a special way a pastor, has been
about calling order into the mess and dramas of human life. It is about
putting stories in a context of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ life,
death and resurrection. It is about being an orchestra conductor in a
communion of communities that we call parish.
It is about loving a group of people more than one’s own comfort,
about being preoccupied with lifting them in prayer, and accompanying
the transformation of bread and wine, together with the gathered assembly,
into the body of Christ. It is about crossing ethnic and ecclesial cultures
with a delicate step. It is about being a disciple oneself, a baptized
seeker of God, like the Master, in and among the local church.
I was asked over the year many times what was more important to me –
being a Franciscan or being a priest. I have never been able to answer
that question adequately. They have always been a single, intertwined
thing since I first met the Santa Barbara Franciscans as a 16-year-old
in Tempe, Arizona. It was love at first sight when I heard a friar minor
preach and celebrate the Eucharist.
I had applied and been accepted to the diocesan minor seminary in Tucson.
My dad had noted several times that summer of 1967, “If you have
any doubts, you’re not going.” He wasn’t sold on the
idea.
About mid-summer I met a Franciscan doing Sunday supply for our parish
and I have never wanted to be anything else quite as bad. I noted a “hands-on”
way of being with people, a great sense of raucous humor and an unobtrusive
prayerfulness. It caught my imagination.
And after 25 years, it has not let go.
A credible priest, wrote John Paul II, “should mold his human personality
in such a way that he becomes a bridge and not an obstacle in their meeting
with Jesus Christ.”
I find those words sobering and yet close to the mark of my experience
with local churches. I think that negotiating borders of conflicted relations
and holding people in communion even in the midst of a great deal of ambiguity
has been the mark of my own era of pastoral leadership.
0rdained ministry, as I have known it, has been anything but dull. More
often it has been sometimes a bit disorganized and more spontaneous than
Mother Church often prefers. Any “holy ordering” I have been
able to pull off has been most beautiful. It has been the work of the
Spirit loving the communities where I have served – a gift to Church
and from the Church at the same time.
Father
Larry Young
Birthplace: Phoenix, Arizona
Ordination: January 17, 1981, New Orleans, LA
Present ministry: Pastor, St. Patrick Parish, Rodeo-Hercules
Past service: Associate pastor, St. Cyril, Oakland; St.
Raymond, Dublin; St. Mary, Walnut Creek. Pastor, St. Cornelius, Richmond;
St. Felicitas, San Leandro; Holy Spirit, Fremont
For 20 years God allowed me to serve the Church as a Holy Cross Brother,
teaching and helping to form young men and women in our Catholic faith.
The next 25 years I have been blessed to serve the Church as a priest.
My vocation was inspired at my home parish, St. Anthony’s in Long
Beach, CA. My educational and spiritual formation was given by good and
happy priests, Sisters and Brothers there.
Some of my brother priests who shared this same formation include Cardinal
William Levada, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, Bishop
Gerald Wilkerson of Los Angeles. Many other priests, Sisters and Brothers
also came from St. Anthony’s. When we get together we talk about
seeing the priests of our school and parish living their vocations and
encouraging us.
The best part of my priesthood has been working with the parish schools,
watching the children develop in their faith and lead their parents back
to the sacraments, and celebrating the sacraments, which bring life to
people.
Father
Ray Zielezienski
Birthplace:
Passaic, New Jersey
Ordination: Dec. 4, 1981, St. Francis de Sales Cathedral,
Oakland
Present ministry: Vicar for priests
Past service: Parochial vicar, Most Precious Blood (now
St. Francis of Assisi), Concord; St. Joachim, Hayward; St. Cassian, Upper
Montclair, New Jersey. Pastor, St. Joachim, Hayward; St. Augustine, Oakland.
Director of vocations.
My reflection on priesthood begins with thoughts of family and a home
environment where faith was deeply rooted and lived out in expressions
of generosity and service to others by my parents and grandparents.
My parents were people who allowed me to discover my gifts and talents
and who always supported my search for truth and meaning in life. That
search led me in many directions – the military service, a career
in graphic arts, and a move across country to Berkeley where I lived,
worked and attended St. Joseph the Worker Church. It was in this faith
community that I discovered a great truth – that wholeness and happiness
in life come not from getting, but from giving.
In my 25 years of service to the People of God in the Diocese of Oakland,
I have been blessed to be a part of so many people’s lives. I have
been privileged to share in the joy of marriages, baptisms and graduations.
I have been honored to preside at Eucharist, and humbled to care for the
sick and dying.
My faith has been strengthened when I have joined others in feeding the
hungry, sheltering the homeless and working for peace and justice in our
world. My hope has been renewed when I’ve watched someone go on
after a setback, when I’ve observed someone letting go of old grudges,
hurts and prejudices, and when I’ve experienced compassion, understanding
and joy in life.
For these are the moments when the Risen Christ is most real to me. I
have been truly blessed.
