After spending ten years in the seminary, I decided to go forward with my vows into the diocesan priesthood. I had seen four or five of my classmates suddenly drop out of this quest when the time came to receive the Subdiaconate, one year before receiving the transitional Diaconate, and then one more year of Diaconate service before being ordained to the priesthood. It kind of shook me, too, for several reasons: one, to receive the Subdiaconate, one had to promise to remain celibate or single for the rest of his life; and two, promise to pray the daily Breviary. The order of Subdiaconate, not really existing in the early Church, was later suppressed by Pope Paul VI in 1973. The promises and responsibilities were moved forward into the Diaconate for later seminarians.
When the year of study and prayer passed and the ordination to the transitional Diaconate appeared, it was easy to decide to go forward. The Deaconate is one of the official offices of the Roman (Latin) rite clergy, the deacon being one, the priesthood the second, and the episcopacy, or bishop, being the third and highest office. I enjoyed being a deacon. At liturgies, the deacon wears a Stole (a long colored piece of cloth over the right shoulder and attached at the left hip) over his vestment (called a Dalmatic) as a sign of authority and office. I was asked to help out at Masses both in the seminary chapel and at Catholic Churches near St Frances Major Seminary. I was asked to read the Gospel at Mass and do some preaching. Being a singer, I enjoyed being asked to sing the “Exultet,” an ancient song of the Easter Candle at Holy Saturday evening liturgies. At Christmas and Easter times, I was the Deacon at liturgies at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, where I grew up. I did the preaching when I was home, and I always had to make time to pray the Breviary (the Liturgy of the Hours), which took about one hour each day.
When the time came for me to be ordained a Priest (in early June of 1966), it was a big deal at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Green Bay, where Bishop John Grellinger ordained eight of us seminarians (Bishop Stanislaus Bona was sick at the time). In the beginning, after we processed in, all eight of us in white albs, over our black cassocks, laid flat on the marble floor before the altar, with our hands supporting our heads. I had a matchbook in my left breast cassock pocket which rested between my rib cage and the marble floor. It caused me considerable discomfort for the few minutes we lay in prayer. After many more minutes in prayer, each of us ordinands knelt before the bishop. Now we placed our hands on the Gospel book and recited promises, then on a chalice and paten holding a large host reciting more promises. At last, our hands were generously anointed with Holy Chrism Oil, and placing both palms together, had our hands tied with a narrow white linen, promising once again to take our ordinations seriously. Of course, a fly landed on my nose and I had to use both hands to move the fly to the next person.
The next part was having our hands untied, and moving to a large kettle filled with pieces of chopped oranges. We plunged our hands into the oranges and scrubbed away the oil, followed by another large kettle filled with pieces of white bread to dry our hands (which it surprisingly did). Now we were vested in fine gold vestments, with a white cord wrapped around our waists as a belt (the secret knot did not slip when tied correctly), then a golden stole was hung around our necks hanging equally down our fronts as a sign of full priestly authority. Finally, a maniple of gold color was hung from our left wrists (an ancient sign of being a waiter or server to the faithful). Maniples are no longer used, thank heaven. They often got in the way at the altar.
Now a long line of fellow priests came forward and walked behind us and, pressing their hands upon our shoulders, gave us each a personal blessing and best wishes. Then we continued to concelebrate the Mass with Bishop Grellinger. After the final blessing and personal introduction, we received thunderous applause from the audience and marched out into the sunshine. Newly minted priests, each facing an unknown future, but the unexpected melange of responsibilities and requests soon offered more challenges and choices than a French bakery.
For placement choices as a newly ordained priest, I had written “military chaplain” on the three lines available. All to no effect. I was assigned to St John Nepomucene Parish and Catholic High School in Little Chute, WI. It was a wonderful village of Dutch people. I was the fourth assistant to a fine elderly pastor. Of course, I was to teach religion to the freshmen class. I was also given the 4:40 a.m. Sunday Mass which had a large number of paper mill workers attending. That lasted about a month before the regular rotation of celebrants gave me other times to celebrate Mass.
A generous parishioner had given the parish a one hundred-thousand-dollar grant to update the Church. I came on a Tuesday, so I put on my old clothes and joined the large number of men who were removing old pews and replacing the altars. No one knew who I was for a half hour or so, until a man walked in, saw me, and said, “Father Murphy, welcome to our parish.” Immediately all the men lined up to shake my hand, and I theirs. All the construction and physical work I did over the years made an impression on them, I hope my spiritual words at Mass also touched them. It was a good introduction to a fine parish.
But I quickly challenged the kindly, elderly pastor. I visited a local ballpark one day and saw the St John Parish men’s fast-pitch softball team getting slaughtered. After the game, I offered to pitch for them. The catcher took his place, and my eighteen years of fastball pitching left-handed caused the first pitch to rise just past his head into the screen. The second pitch was a drop ball that bounced off the back of the plate and over the catcher’s head. The third was a curve ball that snapped by his glove. The manager said, “Father, you are hired.” A couple of days later, wearing a St. John’s Parish uniform, I pitched them to victory. Being sponsored by a local tavern, the whole team, wives, girlfriends, and I sat on the sidewalk outside the tavern, along Main Street in downtown Little Chute, and consumed a quarter barrel of beer. Naturally, someone saw me there and called the Pastor. When I walked into the rectory and up the stairs to my room, the Pastor called me into his office and said, “Father Murphy, I cannot allow you to play softball and then drink beer on the streets of the Village. You must resign from the team immediately.” I did.
On First Fridays, each of us assistant priests, wearing black cassocks with colored stoles around our necks, were given a fourth of the Village with the names of parishioners who were housebound due to old age or illness. Then we walked down the streets and brought both solace and Holy Communion to the people on our lists. It was thought the healthy parishioners would be spiritually impressed by our kindness to the infirm or aged. We also rotated leading the recitation of the Rosary at Wakes and funeral homes, unless the Pastor knew the deceased family well, when he would take over.
In early autumn, I was invited to the school cafeteria where to my surprise, the Kau-Chute Chorders, a men’s barbershop music chorus, was practicing. Someone had told them I was singing in Milwaukee and surrounding area with three other priests, as the Fathers Four Quartet. They needed a tenor, so I jumped right in. In turn they asked me to join their chorus, and, without thinking it through, I said, “Yes.” A week later, I was dressed in red trousers, white shirt, blue bow tie, with a straw hat. The chorus and I went to an area supper club and sang a program for some Women’s Club. Great fun, until the Pastor heard about it and saw my picture in the area newspaper. “Father Murphy, it isn’t right that you are singing in a show costume in a public place.” I responded, “Would it be all right if they let me sing in my black clericals and roman collar?” He grumbled a weak “OK, for now.” The chorus immediately urged me to sing in my black clerical suit and collar. I did. Strike two.
The following July, at about nine o’clock on a Saturday evening, the rectory doorbell rang, and I left my room to answer the door. The Pastor’s room was at the top of the steps to the side door, so he beat me to the door. He opened the door as I came up behind him. There were three high school girls, wearing shorts and tee shirts, asking to see Father Murphy. The Pastor immediately said, “It’s bad enough that you come here so late at night, and wearing such skimpy clothing,” as their mouths fell open and their eyes were wide. I said, “Excuse me, Father, they came to see me,” and he backed away and headed up the stairs to his room. I stepped out and thanked the girls for stopping by, but they were afraid to come inside, quickly said their hellos, and left. Of course, the Pastor read me the riot act, that I had insulted him and his authority. I apologized but defended the girls who knew me from high school religion class. He was not amused.
About ten days later, I received an official letter from the Bishop’s office. The envelope was printed in green ink, which I had been told indicated traveling orders. It was. I was assigned the following Tuesday to St. Peter Parish (with grade school) on High Avenue in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. There I met the most wonderful pastor, Monsignor Francis McKeough, age seventy-six. He was down to earth and thought like a man in his thirties. He welcomed me like a brother and hoped I would teach and sing in the grade school and teach at Lourdes Catholic High School in Oshkosh. And I was welcome to pitch softball and sing in the local Barbershop Chorus if I wished. So I did. I continued to sing with the Father’s Four Barbershop Quartet in Milwaukee.
The parish stood about halfway between the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh College Campus and a popular dance hall and beer bar. Many a Friday night kids would stagger from the bar heading for their Campus rooms. sometimes finding the lush grass in the shadows of the rectory an irresistible place for a little tryst. We kept the rectory curtains closed on the back side of the rectory. I met many fine young women while at St. Peter’s, and my curiosity began to grow as I got to know them.
By autumn of the following year, I received a call from the Bishop’s Office, asking me if I would be willing to travel to Marinette, Wisconsin, on the northern edge of the Green Bay Diocese, to meet an elderly pastor, Father Robert Hogan. It seems he was blowing through assistant priests every two or three months. If he and I came to a mutual agreement, I would be assigned to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Parish, and also teach religion at Catholic Central, a small High School in Marinette. I agreed.
Mondays were my day off, so on Tuesday next, I drove up to Marinette to meet Father Hogan. I knocked on the front door; he opened it, saw me, smiled, and said, “You must be Father Mike Murphy. I suppose the Diocese sent you to see if you and I can get along.” I smiled, shook his hand, and said, “It’s an honor, Father, to meet another Irish priest.” He invited me into his office, disappeared for a few minutes into the kitchen, and came back carrying two tall glasses and a pitcher of Whiskey Manhattans. We talked about life and church and drank the fine Manhattans. He knew about my singing Barbershop music. pitching fast-pitch softball and my love of the outdoors. I told him I was in the market for a piano, to do some arranging. He finally said, “I think you and I will get along fine.” I said, “I think so, too, but I will only drink with you on Saturday nights.” Again, we shook hands. The following week, I received another envelope from the Diocese, addressed to me in green ink. Another wonderful career move that lasted two-plus years.
Father Hogan was hesitant to understand and teach all the changes that the Second Vatican Council was promulgating on the worldwide, Latin rite Catholic Church. I offered to do all the teaching and preaching, always respecting him as the Emeritus (Senior) Pastor who would have the final say. But one evening, after we consumed a glass or two of whiskey on the topic, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. I had weddings and funerals, visited the sick and shut-ins at home or in the hospitals, counseled people, and answered the doorbell or the phone at night. I taught religion at Catholic Central High School, went skiing, and traveled with the various sports teams to out-of-town games. I sang in the local men’s barbershop chorus and pitched for the Marinette Marine fast pitch softball team, went snowmobiling, ice fishing, and deer hunting, and met many wonderful people. I became the District Chaplain for the Knights of Columbus and the Chaplain for the Marinette-Menominee Ladies Junior League. Those were certainly halcyon (happy and peaceful) days. But I began to notice women more and more; it wasn’t that I was lonely. I was just aware of the church law of celibacy and my theological reading did not always support it.
One day, as I said Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Grade School, I noticed a rather lovely blond woman. Later, I found out she was the fourth-grade teacher, a Lutheran, a divorcee with two children, a girl aged ten, and a boy of twelve. By that fall, I was dating Darlene. When the snow fell, I purchased a SkiDoo snowmobile, and often on Mondays, would take her snowmobiling. By spring she was pressing me to consider leaving the priesthood and marrying her. But one day, the Women’s Junior League Club of Marinette-Menominee (women 18 to 40) invited me to a meeting. Seems they were looking for a Chaplain. I remember wearing a black and white striped sports jacket, a pale blue clerical shirt with Roman collar, and a pair of black slacks. I remember telling them: “If you are as lovely on the inside as you are on the outside, it would be an honor to be your Chaplain.” I got a great round of applause.
There in the second row, I suddenly spied a beautiful, young woman, in her mid-twenties, with long blond hair that ran down to her belt and beyond. After the meeting I spoke to Susan, and, as she gazed into my eye and I into hers, VOILA! the lightning bolt struck the two of us hard. Sue had a daughter age four. Sue was tired of dating lawyers, doctors, and other professionals who let her down. I was more than ready to step forward. We began dating, and I decided to break up with Darlene. When I visited her one evening, she looked into my eyes and began to cry. She said, “You are breaking up with me.” I said, “Yes.” I discovered it is difficult to break up with someone you have been close to. She thanked me for being so kind to her. A year later, she invited me to her wedding, and I wished her and her new husband the best of fortune and happiness.
In the summer of 1975, I was assigned as Pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Parish in Lena, Wisconsin, a Village of some 500 people. It was a rural parish with a catholic grade school. The people were very friendly. Many parents invited me to supper, where their grade school children introduced me. Meanwhile, Sue had moved to Green Bay with a secretarial promotion to the manager of the Paper Mill where she had previously worked in the Marinette Office. She and I discussed breaking up. We stopped seeing each other for one month in early 1976 before we gave in and decided to marry after I left the priesthood in late May. I suddenly broke out with a rash over most of my body. I went to see a Dermatologist in Green Bay. After examining me and learning of my decision to leave the priesthood, he consoled me and told me it was just nerves and it would soon go away. He was right.
When I told the parishioners I would be leaving the priesthood, hoping to attend law school. They thanked me for being their priest. One person, an elderly grandmother, said, “Why are you doing this to us? We like you.” I thanked her but said I felt it was time to move on. She wished me well. When I told my parents, and then brought Sue home to meet them, my Father loved her, but my saintly, always gracious, mother was speechless, at first. She felt Sue was pulling me out of the priesthood. I said, “No, Mother, I thought and prayed about this for a long time. I don’t want to make her my housekeeper and live a lie.” Happily, my mother never stopped praying for me, whatever happened.