The priest jubilarians gather with Bishop George Leo Thomas and presenter Bishop Edward Burns of the Diocese of Juneau. The jubilarian Mass was celebrated on the first evening of the diocesan Presbyteral Assembly. Pictured above from the left are Father Vadekkekudy, Father Hall, Father Maddock, Father Roman, Bishop Thomas, Father Perry and Bishop Burns. Jubilarians Msgr. McCarthy and Fathers Lynam and Sullivan are not pictured. (Father Jeff Fleming photo)

The Diocese of Helena this month celebrated the jubilees of eight priests, their years in the clergy ranging from 25 to 60.

The celebration, which was in conjunction with meetings of the diocesan Presbyteral Assembly, began with Mass said Oct. 11 by Bishop George Leo Thomas at Holy Family Church in Anaconda. Concelebrating the Mass were Bishop Edward Burns, of Alaska’s Diocese of Juneau, and some of the jubilarians.

Achieving milestones are Father Gerald Lynam, 60 years in the priesthood; Msgr. John McCarthy, 55 years; Father James Sullivan, 50 years; Father Jacob Vadakkekudy, who will reach his 50th anniversary this March but celebrated early to be with other jubilarians; Fathers Charles Roman and Richard Perry, each 40 years; and Fathers Robert Hall and Andrew Maddock, each 25 years.

Father Gerald Lynam

Father Gerald Lynam guided parishes and taught at Carroll College during his 60 years as a priest. He also learned to fly.

The flight instruction in the 1960s came with Father Lynam’s work as state chaplain for the Civil Air Patrol in Montana, one of several chaplaincies he held during his decades in active ministry. The others included serving at state institutions, the men’s prison and the Warm Springs hospital among them, and at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula.

Father Lynam was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Helena on May 18, 1950, his 32nd birthday. That year, he became an assistant at the Cathedral of St.Helena and began graduate study at The Catholic University of America.

The 1960s brought the Civil Air Patrol chaplaincy–and the flying lessons–plus work as chaplain for the Montana National Guard and Army Reserve. Subsequently, Father Lynam was the administrator at Sacred Heart Mission in Wolf Creek and served as pastor at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Eureka and St. John the Evangelist Parish in Fairfield.

He taught at Carroll from 1953-58 and 1960-68, and headed the Philosophy Department. “I taught a lot of smart kids” and a number of them went on to become priests, he told The Montana Catholic for a 2005 story about his 55th anniversary as a priest.

Now 92, Father Lynam lives in Helena. He was granted senior status in 1987.

Msgr. John McCarthy

After about 45 years of work in Rome, Msgr. John McCarthy has been stateside for almost a decade and now has multiple responsibilities in St. Louis.

The Butte native entered the priesthood 55 years ago with ordination on Dec. 17, 1955, for the Diocese of Helena. He taught at Carroll College for several years, then went to Rome in 1959 for a faculty position at North American College, followed by a faculty position at Lateran University. In 1965, Msgr. McCarthy began many years of work in Rome with the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

Leaving Rome in 2000, he worked in Puerto Rico and Wisconsin. Msgr. McCarthy, 80, now serves the priestly Oblates of Wisdom in St. Louis and is the chaplain at St. Mary of Victories Chapel, church of the Hungarian Catholic community in St. Louis.

Honors reflecting monsignor “levels” were conferred in 1969, when he was named Chaplain to the Holy Father; 1983, Prelate of Honor to His Holiness; and 1995, Protonotary Apostolic.

“I thought of the priesthood from the age of 5,” Msgr. McCarthy said. Catholic education at schools in Butte and then at Carroll College was enormously formative, he said, and he remembers clearly the examples set by priests as he matured.

“I have always been happy with the priesthood,” Msgr. McCarthy said. “I am to this day.”

Those considering religious life should have “a certain instinct of faith…a deep attachment,” he said. “Pray, and be loyal to that insight. Everything else will grow out of that.”

Father Jim Sullivan

As a physician, he referred to himself as Father Sullivan rather than Dr. Sullivan, because the priesthood was his first love.

This is the golden jubilee year for Father Jim Sullivan, ordained on May 28, 1960. He went on to medical school, work as a neurologist and psychiatrist, teaching and research, all on a foundation of priestly service.

“It’s wonderful being a priest and a physician because I can do God’s work spiritually, physically and emotionally,” Father Sullivan told the Archdiocese of Omaha’s newspaper in 1988. He had just celebrated Mass at an Omaha church, and taken a hospital’s call while removing his vestments in the sacristy.

Born in Butte, 76-year-old Father Sullivan is on senior status as a Diocese of Helena priest and lives in Helena. He had been a Carroll College student when he won medical school admission, but he sidelined that acceptance to begin seminary studies. The degree from Nebraska’s Creighton University School of Medicine came later.

His background includes teaching at Carroll, St. Louis University and Creighton, and priest assignments in Helena, St. Louis and Omaha.

“My family led me to the priesthood,” Father Sullivan said in an interview this month. “They were dedicated Catholics.” He said he also was inspired by priests, among them Msgr. Norbert Hoff, Carroll’s fifth president.

Father Sullivan said he offers suggestions, not advice, and for people considering religious vocations he suggests they “pray, study and listen to God’s word.”

He and relatives gathered in Spokane, Wash., last spring for a jubilee celebration.

Father Jacob Vadakkekudy

Celebrating the Eucharist. Father Jacob Vadakkekudy says that has been the most joyful experience in his half century as a priest.

Born to Catholic parents in India, Father Vadakkekudy says he developed a love of Eucharistic liturgy by going to Mass with his mother and praying with her. Priests were among the people who “deeply touched my life,” he says. “After completing high school, I received guidance from the Holy Spirit through my mother and spiritual guides.”

Father Vadakkekudy was ordained on March 12, 1961, and served in India for more than 20 years, followed by mission work and teaching in West Africa. Then he came to the United States, serving in North Dakota.

In 1989, Father Vadakkekudy began 10 years of service in the Diocese of Helena. He was the administrator for St. Michael Parish in Drummond, St. Mary Mission in Gold Creek, St. Theodore Mission in Avon, St. Philip Parish in Philipsburg and St. Joseph Parish in Harlowton. Later he served in other dioceses, mostly as a hospital and nursing home chaplain.

He is 77 and lives in Livonia, Mich.

“I would say the greatest work of the priesthood is the joy of working with people in helping them to see the tremendous, limitless love of Jesus for them and also helping them to see the way to live the love of Jesus with each other,” Father Vadakkekudy said.

Father Richard Perry

Father Richard Perry taught at the high school and college levels before becoming the pastor at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Missoula. Nine years later, he’s 71 and still going strong in his pastoral service at St. Francis.

Ordained a priest on June 13, 1970, in the Jesuits’ Oregon Province, Father Perry taught at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane, Wash., Seattle Prep and Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College. He also served in campus ministry at Seattle Prep.

He was born and raised in Spokane, where St. Ann Parish was his church home for 18 years. He says seeing how Msgr. David Rosaje served that parish led him to seriously consider entering the priesthood. Father Perry says Jesuits under whom he studied as a Gonzaga Prep student inspired him to look at entering the Jesuit community.

Over the years, he says, “one of the places that I have felt my priesthood most drawn out has been in the sacrament of reconciliation. People would come and it was obvious they weren’t coming to talk to me. They were coming to Christ. They would open their hearts…and know they were going to be forgiven.”

He recommends people considering religious life “go into it with eyes wide open and expect the unexpected. It’s going to be totally different, and something better, than you expect it to be. That’s been my experience. Prepare to suffer, too. Christ didn’t promise us a rose bed.”

Father Charles Roman

Father Charles Roman, on senior status since 2004, entered the priesthood gradually.

In Nebraska, where he completed military service in 1962, he met an associate pastor by way of a friend’s wedding and through friendship with that associate, Father Roman’s interest in the priesthood grew. “Something was nibbling all the while, but I guess it took Father Tom Furlong (the associate pastor) to ignite the spark,” said Father Roman, who is 76 and lives in Kalispell.

He was ordained on June 6, 1970, by Helena Bishop Raymond G. Hunthausen, whom he met in the late 1960s when fellow Iowa seminarians from Montana invited him to join them on trips home. “Meeting him and being one of his priests was definitely a turning point in my life,” said Father Roman, born in New York City.

Assignments in the Diocese of Helena began in 1970 with the associate pastor position at St. John’s in Butte and ended with service from 1991-2004 as the pastor at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Whitefish. In the years between, Father Roman served at the Cathedral of St. Helena, St. Anthony Parish in Missoula, St. John the Baptist in Frenchtown and St. Joseph in Libby. In the late 1980s, he served in Florida’s Diocese of Venice.

He said his pastoral work was particularly compelling during very difficult times in lives of the people he served. His advice to people considering religious vocations is that they not decide prematurely. At 25 when he entered the seminary, he was a bit older than classmates. They called him “the fossil,” he said.

Father Robert Hall

Father Robert Hall says he was about 10 when he began thinking the priesthood might be in his future, and he was a Carroll College student when it became clear that priestly service was his calling.

“I was always interested in the Church, from very early on,” says Father Hall, who is celebrating 25 years as a priest and is the pastor at Butte Catholic Community North. “I had a lot of influence from my family (his uncle is Msgr. Joseph Harrington of Helena), and Carroll opened my eyes.”

At a jubilee gathering in Butte on June 21, the date of his ordination in 1985, the 51-year-old Father Hall told well-wishers that the Lord’s presence sustained him as a priest, and that he felt overwhelming gratitude.

Highlights of his priesthood include a surge in Montana State University students’ involvement at Bozeman’s Resurrection Parish during his last five years there, he says. “There was a good spirit about them, a real community of young people at that church,” he remembers.

In addition to Bozeman and his hometown of Butte, Father Hall has served in Anaconda, Choteau and Fairfield.

For those considering religious vocations, he advises being “sure that it’s not just your idea, but that you really feel a call. You give up certain things to be a priest–the immediacy of your own family– but you have a larger family and you are invited into families. You share in their lives at important times, and they invite you in.”

Father Andrew Maddock

Father Andrew Maddock, the pastor at St. Ignatius Mission Parish, entered the Jesuit order in 1962 and served as a brother before ordination as a priest 25 years ago, on June 8, 1985. His work as brother included carpentry for Jesuit construction crews, then maintenance tasks at Missoula’s St. Francis Xavier Parish.

“It was there that I felt the urge to get more education and do sacramental ministry,” said Father Maddock, 67 and born in Tacoma, Wash. His education includes study at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

After teaching religion at Catholic prep schools, he served as the pastor at Immaculate Conception Church in Fairbanks, Alaska, and as the associate pastor at Sacred Heart Mission in DeSmet, Idaho. He has been the St. Ignatius pastor since 2000.

“One of the things I most love to do is to hear confessions,” Father Maddock said. “You see God working in people’s lives … and to be part of that is a blessing.”

Advice for people considering religious vocations? “Listen for what God wants you to do and how best to use your talent for the greater good. You never know when he is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey, I need you to help me.’”

Father Maddock’s anniversary celebrations included August gatherings at Gonzaga with other Jesuit jubliarians and at his brother’s home in western Washington. Celebrations at St. Ignatius Mission Parish and its Arlee mission were in September.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 10, October 15, 2010.