Childhood Dream of Becoming
a Priest Brings Great Joy and Challenges

by Father Franklin Wrigley,
with María Ruiz Scaperlanda

When asked as a small child growing up in Akron, Ohio, what I wanted to be, the answer was always the same: “a priest.” Frequently, when this mini-dialogue was taking place, my mother intervened with a corrective comment, “He always told me he wanted to be a bishop.”

Being the fifth child in a family of six boys is like being a sophomore in high school. You’re a nobody, kind of forgotten. When I was about nine, I contracted tuberculosis, and I was in bed for the next three years. In those years they had nothing for it, and TB was considered very contagious. That experience shaped me. It certainly affected my relationship with people. For three years of my life I was only with my own family, no other people.

In the fall of 1935, I went back to school, three years older than everybody else and with my youngest brother in the same class.

In the spring of 1938 my third oldest brother asked me if I was serious about the priesthood. “If you are,” he suggested, “You’d best get moving.”

There were several seminarians in the parish where I grew up-all candidates for the Society of the Divine Word (SVDs), a foreign missionary society. I didn’t think very much about the difference between a religious and a diocesan priest. The priesthood was what mattered. The SVDs seemed the natural and easy way to go. As a result, I began my studies near Dubuque, Iowa, in the fall of 1938.

I remember getting on a bus in September of 1938 and heading to Dubuque to attend the high school prep-seminary. I had never been away from home. When I look back on it, I see that it took courage. I was fortunate. I never got home sick.

I spent seven years as a candidate for the SVDs until I had a recurrence of tuberculosis in 1945. The Society decided then that I was not a good candidate for the foreign missions.

What now? I had lost three years as a child with tuberculosis and another three as an SVD candidate. It was already the end of August. Indeed! What now? I remembered a cousin who was a priest in Oklahoma. We had met only once, and I knew little about him-except that he was Rector of the Cathedral. I knew even less about Oklahoma. I called my cousin and asked his advice. He said, “Pack your stuff and go home-and think about coming to Oklahoma.”

Fortunately, I took his advice. Soon I was continuing my seminary studies in St. Louis for the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

On March 15, 1952, I was ordained to the priesthood in my home parish of St. Bernard’s in Akron. It was not a highly emotional event as ordinations sometimes are, which surprised even me. As I look back on it, I see that high anticipation, excitement, or an emotionally moving experience (when blessing one’s mother, for example) may be part of the ordination experience, but need not be.

Two weeks after my ordination, on March 29, 1952, I arrived in Tulsa and was assigned to St. Francis Xavier parish. Monsignor Peter Paul Schaefer must have wondered what he had done to deserve this young priest. A year earlier, Pope Pius XII had restored the Easter Vigil-the first of the major changes in the Church’s liturgical life. On the first day that I arrived at St. Francis I began describing this new Rite and urging the pastor to adopt it—two weeks before Holy Saturday.

As a preview of how lucky I was, Monsignor Schaefer did not throw me out of the rectory or even chew me out for the fresh, young priest I was. Instead, he suggested that I undertake the project myself. With that, I wisely beat a hasty retreat. A year later, the parish did adopt the new Rite.

I know God surely blessed me in my first assignment. I’ve often thought how those early years under Msgr. Schaefer paid off handsomely in the 1960s and 1970s, when the irruption brought on by the Second Vatican Council took place. It was all too much for many of the men I grew up with in the priesthood.

I still can’t believe all the changes brought on by the Vatican Council. Today’s seminarians can’t really appreciate those changes with the excitement and hopes that accompanied the Council Fathers’ decrees.

The media gave the Council sessions ample and positive coverage, which is so different from the ample but far less positive media convergence of today’s sex scandals.

Shortly before Vatican II, Bishop Reed appointed me Spiritual Director of the archdiocese’s minor seminary. During those years, I had completed a Master’s degree in European History at OU.

Vatican II was not an easy time for either priests or laity. The temptation to leave the priesthood was frequently strong, especially when many of my friends departed.

That temptation at 82 is still lurking in the background, especially when it seems that the Church is bent on moving to the past. But an overpowering hope and a look at what the Council has already accomplished suggests to me that the Holy Spirit is still alive and well, still able and willing to take on the tasks facing a Church semper reformandam. This is where my hope remains.

I served in many places throughout Oklahoma, sometimes for only a short time. During my 52 years of ministry, two experiences stand out. The first was the last three years of my eight years at the parish of St. Joseph in Norman. I was there when Bishop Quinn decided to unite St. Joseph and St. Thomas More University parish. Norman was quite in turmoil at the time. Those were difficult times. The combining of the two communities presented challenges and opportunities that no single parish could offer.

The second experience was my work with Northwest Ministries, combining aspects of ministry to Guymon and Woodward with the help of two very creative and competent Victory Noll Sisters. I was there for five years and loved it. I liked the people. I liked Western Oklahoma.

Both Norman and Woodward were exciting times. My regret is that, sadly, when both experiences came to an end, no effort was made to evaluate them.

As I approached my 25th year as a priest I decided I needed a change. I left Saint Joseph’s in Norman and headed north to the Diocese of Calgary, Alberta. It was a great experience in a village of 300 people, most of them Catholic. The year was 1976.  About 15 years later I fulfilled a childhood dream, spending 2 years in Alaska. I knew the archbishop of Anchorage, Alaska. I called and asked him if he’d have a place for me. I spent the following year on the circuit, traveling on small planes to parishes that didn’t have a resident priest. I saw a lot of Alaska that many people never see. I had some marvelous experiences. The second year I was pastor of the Catholic Church in Soldotna.

I would have stayed, but I had been in Oklahoma too long. Knowing that I had an option, a place that I could go if I ever wanted to leave, was so freeing! It may be ironic, but that’s what has kept me here in Oklahoma.

I’ve been asked where I’d like to be buried. It won’t be in Akron. I am going to be buried in Oklahoma City. I’ve always come back here. This is where I belong. Oklahoma is my home.

As I look back on these 52 years as a priest, I see that my greatest challenge in the past is actually the same as my hope for the Church now-that all of the Second Vatican Council’s “open windows” be allowed to be part of the Church’s long history.