Bishop Kevin Farrell

The Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas

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Priests Convocation

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Priests of the diocese will gather for their biennial convocation in Westlake June 3-6. During the four days, priests will have the opportunity to discuss mutual pastoral concerns, participate in special presentations on aspects of their ministry, be given an update on the affairs of the diocese and share in liturgies, meals and fellowship with their confreres.

Special presentations this year will concern the effective utilization of permanent deacons in the parish. There are presently 157 active permanent deacons in our diocese.  Father W. Shawn McKnight S.T.D., a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, and Executive Director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will make the presentation. He will also give a presentation on the new preaching document issued by the USCCB last November.

Marriage preparation and the work of the Marriage Tribunal are important aspects of the priestly ministry. A presentation on this important topic will be given by Monsignor Mark A. Plewka, J.C.L. Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado and a former member of the Board of Governors of the Canon Law Society of America.

On the final day I will share with the priests information on the state of the diocese in 2013 and plans for the future based on the impact of demographic data from the 2010 census and propose a vision for the future that all can share.

Please keep our priests in prayer during this important time.

Priesthood Sunday

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Next Sunday is Priesthood Sunday and I am not just going to remind you to thank your priests for giving their lives to serve you and all of our parishioners, I am going to join you in saluting our wonderful priests.

As bishop I am in a unique position to understand the contribution that priests make to our Church. By God’s grace, I am your bishop, but it is our priests who, in the words of Vatican II, “gather together God’s family…all of one mind and lead them in the Spirit, through Christ, to God the Father.”

I am grateful to our priests for their commitment to Christ in His Church, for their service to Christ in his people, and for making my ministry possible. We might say that Sunday is a special kind of Fathers’ Day, a day, not for honoring our natural fathers, but our spiritual fathers.

They are Fathers who bring Jesus’ presence to the passages of our lives. They baptize us, they reconcile us, they teach us, they marry us, they are with us on our journey to the Heavenly Father, and they are with us when we leave for the final passage home.

Sunday, when you tell Father how much you appreciate him, please also give him a pat on the back from me.

Appreciation for your parish priest

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As priests we have the privilege of sharing the defining moments of life with you. Your parish priest or bishop is there to welcome you into the Body of Christ at Baptism, to introduce you to Jesus in the Eucharist at First Communion, to empower you with the Holy Spirit at Confirmation, to reconcile you to God and the Church in Confession, to begin a new family at your Marriage and to prepare you for the journey home to the Father as death approaches.

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Our new seminarians

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Monday evening I had the joy of meeting and welcoming 12 new seminarians for the Diocese of Dallas with celebration of Mass and a dinner. This year the Lord has blessed us with an even dozen, a twenty percent increase over 2009. Altogether we have 55 seminarians for the Diocese.

The annual Seminarian Convocation is underway this week as they prepare for the beginning of the academic year. Each year the number of seminarians has been increasing thanks to God and to the prayers of all the people of the Diocese who regularly pray for vocations. I also thank all or our priests who promote vocations in their parishes.

Not only do we have larger numbers of seminarians entering, we also have more approaching ordination. In 2011 we will ordain three new priests for the Diocese and in 2012 we will ordain six more.

On October 5 there will be a public welcome for all of our seminarians at the Fairmont Hotel, I urge you all to join in welcoming these fine young men. Contact Holy Trinity Seminary for information.

Most of all I urge you to continue your prayers for our seminarians and for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Without prayer there will be no vocations.

The World of the Priest

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In reflecting upon our ministry as priests as this Year for Priests draws to a close, it occurs to me that there are two different worlds out there. One is the world of “what if?” and the other is the world of “what is”. One is the world of tomorrow. The other is the world today. We need both, for tomorrow is the future, but our priestly ministry is to the world of “what is”, the world of today. It is our choice. It is our calling.

In the imitation of Christ a priest is called to be for others…from the least to the greatest. To be a priest is to bring the healing and forgiving love of Jesus to the world of what is. It is to work to mitigate the misery, the grief, the sorrow and desolation that haunts so many. It is to dispel the gloom by flooding it with the light of the Gospel. It is to lead the doubter to faith, the dispirited to hope and to the marginalized to love.

Because he is for others, a priest cannot be separated from his people. He brings the love of Jesus to them in Word and Sacrament; they in turn immerse him in the love of Jesus in the Body. This is especially true today when the actions of a few have brought vilification upon the many.

To live in the world of “what if?” is a constant siren call. When this is changed, when that is different, when we get a new pastor, when we get a new bishop…when the Church is what I think it should be, then I will be able to minister the way I should. That world does not exist…at least for now.

Priestly ministry is to the church today, with all its weaknesses and all its glories.

The Diocese of Dallas has been abundantly blessed with good, holy, dedicated and faithful priests; men of God and men for others. I am honored to serve them as bishop.

Your priest’s ministry will not end when the Year for Priests closes, nor will the need for priests. As long as there is need for the healing and forgiving love of Jesus, as long as there is the darkness of grief, sorrow and desolation in need of the light of Christ, as long as there is need for Word and Sacrament, there will always be the need for priests.

Join me in prayerful thanksgiving for these men who have dedicated their lives to service of and in the Church of Dallas.

The Year for Priests

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You might ask “with all the scandals about priests, isn’t it difficult to write on The Year for Priests?”

Not at all, on the contrary, while the media is writing about the scandals, I will write about the hundreds of faithful priests in our diocese and the hundreds of thousands in the world.

Who are they? They are the priests who visit the sick, celebrate two and sometimes three Masses on Sunday, baptize babies, hear confessions, balance budgets, attend parish meetings, console grieving families, conduct funerals, resolve disputes, coordinate parish ministries, celebrate marriages, counsel troubled parishioners, answer telephone calls and emails, handle marriage cases, try to find time for personal prayer, get up early for Mass and go to bed exhausted.

They are the priest who personally collects clothing and used household items for struggling parishioners who need them. They are the priest who burns the midnight oil preparing a homily for Sunday Masses. They are the hospital chaplain who walks the corridors strengthening faith and courage, alleviating fears. They are the priest who visits the jails and prisons offering hope.

They are the priests who feel the disdain of those who paint with a broad brush. They are the priests who suffer every time the media reports on another sensationalized scandal. They are the priests who honor their vows. They are the priests who love the Church but recognize that while it was divinely founded it is populated by both saints and sinners. They are the priests who know that in spite of the human weaknesses of its members the Church is still the continuing saving presence of Jesus in the world. They are the priests who make Jesus present in Word and Sacrament.

They are your priests. They are the priests we celebrate in this Year for Priests.

I am proud to be one of them.