“I’m amazed how he was able to preach in such a way that would connect with everyone. I mean, we were children, but we would sit there and we probably didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but he had an energy and an electricity about him. He would just connect with you. It was really amazing,” he said.
O’Malley also noted that he would see Sheen pray a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the sacristy before Mass.
He even remembers the pastor telling him: “The bishop is doing his Holy Hour; don’t bother him.”
He said that he was “so impressed” by Sheen’s Holy Hour.
“His writings to priests and seminarians would always stress how important that was in his spirituality. And the Holy Hour has always been very important for me, too, as the time before the Blessed Sacrament to watch and pray,” he said.
O’Malley, a Capuchin friar, said that one day, his older brother was going on a retreat at a Capuchin monastery and he came along for the ride with their father.
O’Malley met an old German friar who was working in a garden there and spoke to him for a long time before heading home.
“When we were going home, my dad said, ‘That old friar is the happiest man in the world,’” he said.
At first, O’Malley thought, “He didn’t have a beautiful wife, he didn’t have a nice car, didn’t have nice threads. What a boring job, hoeing that garden.”
“But instinctively, I knew what my dad said was right, and he exuded peace and happiness and goodness, and I said, ‘I’d like to be happy like that.’ And it made me start to think there’s another path to happiness,” he said.
After attending a Capuchin-run high school in Pennsylvania, O’Malley entered St. Fidelis Seminary in the same town. He was ordained a Capuchin priest in 1970, ordained a bishop in 1984, appointed to be archbishop of Boston in 2003, and elevated to cardinal in 2006.
“I’ve been a priest for 53 years. It’s not always been easy, it’s not always been fun, but it’s been marvelous, and I would do it over again in a heartbeat,” he said.
The ‘first American pope’
Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, Bishop Earl Fernandes, 51, is more than a year into being a bishop, more than 20 into his priesthood, and says he has “no regrets.”
Raised in a faithful Catholic family in Toledo, Ohio, something was “awakened” in Fernandes while he was studying abroad in Europe during college through attending daily Mass, he told CNA.
Fernandes had previously expressed interest in the priesthood in high school by asking that vocation materials be sent to his home during a class on vocations in his Catholic high school. In eighth grade, Fernandes and his classmates had to predict what each would be in 50 years, and “mine predicted I‘d be the first American pope,” he said.
While studying abroad during Christmas 1992, Fernandes visited Rome and his heart began to “thump” seeing the burial places of former popes.
“And then I came to the tomb of St. Peter and I fell to my knees. I knew at that moment what God was calling me to, and yet I was afraid of it,” he said.
Despite his experience, he returned home and applied and was accepted to medical school at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. His mother always encouraged him to pursue the medical field after his father. Three of his four brothers today are physicians.
“My mother would also tell us, pray that you be a good boy, a tall boy, and a doctor, just like my dad,” he said.
“But I kind of realized, in the end, you can run from God, but he will pursue you,” he said.
Fernandes continued to frequent daily Mass and one day attended church where there were two elderly Italian priests, one 85 and one 75. Fernandes noticed that these priests were “faithful and happy.”
“And I thought ‘I could be that old and be a priest and be happy,’” he said.
He eventually decided to take a leave from medical school to discern the priesthood in Rome. After a year of discernment, he entered the seminary in Cincinnati.
Fernandes was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati on May 18, 2002, and ordained a bishop on May 31, 2022.
Looking back on his vocation journey, Fernandes said: “God was clearly calling me to be a priest. The signs were all there.”
Fernandes mentioned that he constantly feels joyful and smiles often.
“Well, that‘s the joy of being a priest; the joy of knowing that I am loved by God and that he‘s present and he‘s close. It really does bring a lot of joy, and I can‘t help but share that joy with those around me,” he said.
Joseph Bukuras is a journalist at the Catholic News Agency. Joe has prior experience working in state and federal government, in non-profits, and Catholic education. He has contributed to an array of publications and his reporting has been cited by leading news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. He is based out of the Boston area.