James Petru

Priesthood – A Dream

W. James Petru

From my earliest childhood memories my dream was to be a priest. This dream could have had its roots in a comment that was made by the mid-wife who had assisted my mother. My birth occurred at 9:30 AM on Sunday, July 19, 1936, which happened to coincide with the start of Mass at our local parish church, St. Anthony’s in Raymondville, Texas. When she was told this, the mid-wife made the predictive comment, “he will be a priest”. Another influencing factor could have been the three uncles, all brothers of my father, who were priests.

There is no recollection of my having been influenced by my parents towards the priesthood. After all, my father was a farmer, and of the seven children in our family, I was the only boy. It would have been quite natural for him to look forward to having his son take over the farm and all that he had worked so hard to acquire.

I remember counting the days that remained during the summer of 1950 before the start of my first year at St. John’s Seminary in San Antonio, Texas as a freshman in high school. My recollection of the 250 mile drive to take me to the seminary is still very vivid. My parents drove me there by car. It seemed like such a long trip. For the remaining 12 years, my trips back and forth for holidays and summer breaks were either by train or bus. As a diocesan seminarian, I could spend my Christmas and Easter holidays as well as summers at home.

The 12 years in the seminary were idyllic years. Those were among the most peaceful and fulfilling years of my life. At the start of my seminary years, it seemed as if the 12 years would take forever. All too quickly, however, I found myself kneeling in front of Bishop Marianno S. Garriga in the Corpus Christi Cathedral on Saturday, May 26^th, 1962, to be ordained a priest forever. I had achieved what had been a lifelong dream, and reached it without undue struggle other than to survive 12 years of study, prayer, play and camaraderie.

My first assignment, after a month off spent with my parents and sisters, was to St. Patrick’s Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was the third of three assistants in what was the most prestigious parish in the diocese. I had also been appointed Notary to the Matrimonial Tribunal, and Diocesan Director of the Society of the Holy Childhood. My time at St. Patrick’s was hugely fulfilling … until I met Emily.

Being attracted to women, or to a woman, was not exactly a new experience. After all, during Visiting Sunday’s, which occurred once a month when families of seminarians could come to the seminary to spend a few hours, there would be sisters of classmates and other seminarians whom I would meet and get to know. I was aware of my attraction to them, but that was all that it was. This was not what I felt when I met and came to know Emily. I do not remember how long it was after meeting her that I realized something very different had happened to me.

Emily was not only beautiful and intelligent, but she gave rise to something within me that was so strong and overwhelming that I was emotionally overcome. We kept trying to find ways to spend time together as often as possible, which never seemed to be enough. Naturally, this came to the attention of my superiors, who challenged me with this most heinous of sacrilegious activities, consorting with a woman. Despite having been sent for several days of individual solitary retreat in order to re-establish my priorities and to reaffirm my vows (which as a diocesan priest I never made), and despite having been called into the presence of my three priest uncles, there was no quieting the incredible emotional upheaval that I was experiencing.

In 1968 I suggested to my bishop (Bishop Garriga had died by this time) that he grant me a leave of absence so that I could move away from Emily. The intent was for me to determine whether my feelings were transitory, or something far more innate. Based on some ads I had seen in the National Catholic Reporter, a group known as Bearings for Re-establishment offered assistance for priests and religious in transition in either Chicago or New York. I ultimately chose Chicago, and in August of 1968, drove to Chicago with my few possessions which included an automobile, a few clothes and a sand wedge which had been given to me by a parishioner in my first parish.

Prior to leaving for Chicago, however, I spent about a month helping my father harvest his cotton crop. He had just come through major surgery, and was physically incapable of harvesting the cotton himself. Even though I had spent countless hours during my summers while in the seminary driving tractors, this was my first experience with a mechanical cotton picker. It is hot, dirty work, and I greatly admired my father for what he did to provide for my mother and their seven children. He welcomed the help that I was providing, but had a hard time understanding why I needed to go to Chicago. It was just a few months earlier that Chicago was the scene of some bloody riots during the Democratic Convention. My explanation was limited to my need for additional education. I had not explained to my parents what the true reason was.

At a Bearings sponsored convention in Chicago, shortly after my arrival, I met others who were in the process of transition from clerical to lay life. Through these new contacts, I was able to connect with a south side Chicago parish that would provide me with living quarters in return for weekend assistance, primarily because of my ability to speak Spanish. My plan at that time was to enroll at a university in Chicago towards a degree in clinical psychology. To this end I would use the value of my car as well as whatever stipends were earned in order to defray the cost of the coursework. The only insurmountable obstacle was that, when I applied to the Archdiocese of Chicago for faculties to preach, the response was that such faculties are granted only to those priests who were sent to Chicago by their Ordinary, not to such as me who was on a leave of absence. The priests at that parish invited me to remain, but in conscience, I could not place this kind of burden on them.

That was the point at which the decision was made. I had to be responsible for my choice, but that did not lessen the pain of the realization that my dream would no longer include functioning as a priest. I do not regret the path that my life has taken since that time, even though as I look back, my life has been nothing short of a remarkable succession of divine interventions.

My focus now was to find a place to live, and some means of earning a livelihood. My first residence was an attractive, secure studio apartment in the 900 block of West Wilson Avenue on the north side of Chicago. It even had an underground parking place for my automobile which, for Chicago, was of no small importance. Little did I realize, however, that the ideal “digs” also came with its own challenge. While functioning as a priest, there was no need for credit. Now that I was to begin earning my own income, it was important for me to establish a credit record. To do this, I went to a bank with the thought of obtaining a loan of a few hundred dollars with my car as collateral. As long as it was worth more than the amount of the loan, why would any bank not grant me the loan? In the course of filling the loan application forms, the loan officer asked for my address. When he heard “West Wilson Avenue”, he paused for a moment, reached down for the application form, and ripped it up in front of me. That was when he informed me that the address which I had given to him was within an area known as “Skid Row”. This was my first experience with “red-lining”, a practice which had subsequently been declared illegal in Illinois.

As for the job situation, the Scriptural passage that comes to mind is, “… to dig I am unable, and to beg I am ashamed….” As for the physical labor, at age 31, I was still quite capable of digging, but this was not quite what came to mind. I had newly acquired obligations in the form of monthly rent, as well as a long standing habit of eating. Since a loan was no longer possible, I now turned to the only alternative that remained; sell the car. My thought was to go to a local auto dealership to see what they would offer me. As expected, the sales manager was brought into the picture. He inquired as to my reason for wanting to sell the car without the intent of purchasing another. After going through the explanation of how I came to my present situation, he offered me employment in his car dealership. This did not quite fit the image of an ideal job, but it did beat out “begging”. My very first job, then, was as a used car salesman.

My time with the auto dealership lasted just a few short weeks. The next job was as a sales consultant with Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. From car salesman to insurance salesman; that was progress, but my latest move did have more going for it. My thought process throughout all of this was that, if my decision to leave the priesthood was to be complete, what better way to make this final than to choose a field of endeavor that is totally removed from anything for which I had been prepared? Sales seemed the appropriate transitional activity.

In June of 1969, after spending what seemed to be a fortune in long distance phone calls, Emily moved to Chicago, and we were married in a private home in the Hyde Park. The marriage ceremony was performed by a married priest whom I met through Bearings.

My most pressing challenge at this time was how and when to inform my parents that their priest-son was now married. With hindsight, I should have had the courage to go to them in person and tell them, but for a variety of reasons, including fear, my choice was to use a less confrontational approach. Instead, I wrote a letter, thinking that a more positive approach would be to inform them that they now had a daughter-in-law.

My sisters were present when the letter was read, and the reaction that they witnessed was far more drastic than they had expected. They were already aware of my marriage, and they also knew Emily well. The news of the marriage came as a surprise to my sisters, but they were supportive. When my parents got to the announcement of a daughter-in-law, they immediately left the living room, went into their bedroom and closed the door. After a rather lengthy period of time, my father finally came out of the bedroom, went to the shelf where a picture of me with Roman collar was placed, turned it face down, and then went to his grandson and said, “You will now have to take the place of my son that I lost.”

On special occasions such as birthdays or holidays, greeting cards which I had sent them were returned unopened. It was perhaps a year or two later when my mother sent me a letter. She wanted to let me know that my youngest sister was getting married, and requested that I not come home for the wedding. We did not go to the wedding, but we did arrive in time for the festivities afterwards. Once my parents saw us being accepted by the rest of the family (my mother came from a family of 14, and my father from a family of 9), it was enough for them to accept us as well.

My time as an insurance salesman lasted about two years. In the summer of 1971, my thoughts began to turn to the possibility of obtaining an advanced degree. Emily was the secretary to a hospital administrator, so the thought of obtaining a degree in hospital administration had great appeal. Northwestern University was just starting up a graduate degree in Hospital and Health Services Administration in the fall of 1971. It actually had the oldest academic program in this field, but had terminated it some ten years earlier. In 1971, the decision was made to revive the degree, and Dr. Sam Edwards was brought up from San Antonio, Texas for the purpose of program development. Dr. Edwards was a well-known figure in a state hospital association at that time.

My application to Northwestern for admission into the hospital administration field of study was accepted, and so in September, 1971, I became a full-time college student. In May, 1973 I received an MBA with dual majors in Hospital & Health Services Administration as well as Accounting & Information Systems, and then continued another two years to receive a Ph.D. in Accounting & Information Systems from Northwestern University. It was not until some time later that I discovered another instance of the unmistakable hand of God in the events of my life. As part of the start-up activities of the health administration program, Dr. Sam Edwards was responsible for evaluating the applications of all of the potential candidates. He recognized my last name because of the last name of his former secretary in San Antonio, Texas who was married to my first cousin. Apparently that was a strong factor in his decision to accept me into the health administration program.

The years since 1975 were filled in several different capacities. First was the executive directorship of an agency that coordinated the joint efforts of 14 hospitals on the north side of Chicago. Perhaps the most outstanding responsibility was the annual disaster rehearsal wherein the Chicago city fire department, police, emergency personnel and hospital emergency rooms practiced and then analyzed the results of a mock disaster. In 1982 I joined the faculty of the Graduate Business School at Aurora University as professor, and subsequently became the Dean of the school.

In 1980 my marriage with Emily came to an end. Seven years later I married Sue, a classy, strong-willed woman with a personality of sunshine. In 1989 she took on a position as the Chief Financial Officer of a hospital system based in St. Louis, MO. In 1990 I terminated my position as Dean of the Business School at Aurora University and moved to be with Sue in St. Louis. In 2005 Sue retired from her full-time job, and we now live in Clearwater, Florida, but spend the summer in Missouri and Wisconsin. We like to travel and involve ourselves in a number of charitable activities.

A number of other former priests have described how they have felt a strong need or desire to continue actively administering the sacraments and celebrating the Liturgy. I still wistfully yearn to continue performing the spiritually life-giving activities within the formal structure of the Church. I am convinced, however, that it will not happen in my life time. My current fulfillment is the realization that I am living out my dream by being the leaven in the dough through the sacramental presence of the priesthood. I am living my dream.

W. James Petru

Email: wpetru@quixnet.net

cell: 314-226-3248