Frs. Richard Whalen, Timothy Shea and John Hibbard graduated together from St. Augustine’s Seminary in 1974. They were ordained about a minute apart, recalled Shea. Now, the triumvirate serves the three parishes in this eastern Ontario city — Whalen at St. Michael’s parish, Shea at St. Joseph’s and Hibbard at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.
“Things never change,” said Shea. “Fr. Whalen, when we were seminarians, was young and he was very spiritual. And Fr. Hibbard was young and very well organized. And I was young and goofy.”
Forty years later he said he’s still the goofy one of the three.
The three Belleville priests will celebrate 40 years of service to the Catholic Church on April 27. The Catholic Women’s League is organizing a joint reception for the three at St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School.
Shea said the three friends complement each other in many ways. “It works out pretty well because I know that I’m not everybody’s cup of tea,” he said. “People in this area can go to St. Michael’s or they can go to Holy Rosary because they can’t stand me.”
Hibbard said that he tends to be more philosophical while Shea often wins people over to the Church through his humour. He said Whalen tends to be the most traditional.
Although Hibbard said none of them fool around when it comes to religion, he had some stories to tell about their time at seminary. And most of them revolved around Shea.
“He was the life of the seminary in many ways,” said Hibbard.
“Tim had organized some people into what was called the CORE… Celibate Organization Requiring Excitement.”
On one occasion he recalled being invited by a core member to a social. Hibbard said at the end of the night the group announced that he had won the door prize and they walked in carrying a door.
“I looked at the number on the door and it was the door from my room.” Whalen said he remembered people finding statues in their beds to scare them. He said he walked into his room once only to find it completely empty and his things spread all around the seminary.
There was general agreement among the three priests that Shea was always the most likely to get in trouble. Hibbard said they weren’t supposed to be away from the seminary overnight. Shea used to play hockey with The Flying Fathers, the travelling team of hockey-playing priests, and during his seminary years the team once played in Halifax. Shea knew that he wouldn’t be given permission to go if he had asked so he got the other students to cover for him while he was gone, said Hibbard. The director of the seminary found out about it as he also happened to be in Halifax at the time, and saw a picture in the paper of the Flying Fathers, with Shea among them.
“When we were in the seminary, chances are I’d probably be the one most likely to get in trouble but now I’m a good citizen,” said Shea.
“(Shea) skates on thin ice but he has such a great sense of humour and easy personality about him that whereas somebody might really get into serious trouble, he’ll only get a slap on the wrist,” said Whalen.
Whalen said he grew up very close to the Church and felt a call from God to pursue the priesthood while he was very young. He said that he never thought about becoming a priest in terms of leadership but rather in terms of serving God.
The most rewarding part of his service in the Church is watching people discover the joy of knowing God and giving themselves in service to other people, he said.
Shea said he had doubts about pursuing a leadership role in the Church at first.
“I remember early on in the seminary I’d ask myself, ‘can I be a priest?’ And the answer was always no because I was goofy. But then eventually over time I learned that I was asking the wrong question and the question I should have been asking was ‘can a priest be me?’ The answer for that was yes,” he said.
“So for 40 years, basically that’s been what’s going on. I’m just being myself and it seems to be working.”
Shea said it has been a privilege to serve at each of the seven parishes he has led.
“The people just seem to be so good and faithful and so prayerful (and) that inspires you as the priest,” he said. “The holiest people I know aren’t priests, the holiest people I know are parishioners.”
Hibbard said that one of the harder things about being a priest is that there’s no way of knowing just how many people you’ve affected with your ministry.
(Bond is a freelance writer in Belleville, Ont.)