By Rita McInerney

This spring and summer have been seasons of celebration for Father Joseph P. Caffrey, SM, as he shared the joy of 25 years in the priesthood with his families; the congregation at Our Lady of the Assumption in Atlanta and his natural family in Ireland.

The parish celebrated the pastor's silver anniversary at a Mass and reception on Sunday, April 24. His five brothers and three sisters came from Ireland to share the occasion with him.

The celebration in Ireland July 14 was shared with his brother, Frank, who was ordained a Holy Ghost Father in 1963, the same year Father Caffrey was ordained a Marist priest. Father Frank teaches at St. Mary's College in Nairobi, Kenya. There is a third priest among the six Caffrey brothers, Seamus, also a Marist, who teaches at Chanel College in Dublin.

The Atlanta priest became OLA pastor in January of this year, succeeding Father Edward J. Murray, SM. He was assigned to the parish in July, 1986, after 19 years at Marist School and a year-long sabbatical. At Marist he was, at various times, dean of students, teacher of religion, math and journalism.

He was a professed Marist in his third year of theology when the Irish province of the Society of Mary had a request from the Washington province for "some assistance."

"Several of us came over in 1962," he said. "I went to Catholic University and Marist College and was ordained in 1963." He spent two years in Cleveland, Ohio, before being assigned to Marist.

Switching from the academic to pastoral role wasn't a big adjustment, he said. He found the principal difference to be the unstructured nature of parish work. "In school you're going constantly from 8 to 3 every day, and several evenings. It's predictable. In a parish the intensity is not as constant. The schedule is not as predictable. Consequently the hours are longer. The areas you have to concern yourself with are all over the place."

The red-haired Marist priest can't compare parish life here and in Ireland. "I've been longer in this country," he replied with a trace of impatience when asked the question.

"I was 21 when I left Ireland. What qualifies one as Irish? ... All my priestly experience is here. I don't care for it when people emphasize my Irishness. Most of the Irish priests here in Atlanta are very sensible. The have adopted Atlanta as their home and just happen to vacation every year or so in Ireland. He was not especially pious while growing up in Dublin. "Most of the better priests I know were not." He didn't know the Marists existed until he was 17. Now, 25 years a priest, he speaks of a vocation as "the choice one makes. Everybody is invited to make it by God and the Church ... Some kind of go along with it," he said.

Father Caffrey doesn't subscribe to conventional views on vocations and the post-Vatican-II church.

"I don't believe you have an interior voice" revealing a vocation, he believes. "It is not obligatory demand."

"I try to emphasize the fact that every Christian is called to discipleship," he said of his focus on vocations. "It is these particular gifts that prompt the church -- the people of God -- to call them to ordained discipleship or vowed discipleship in community."

"When people recognize that somebody has these gifts, then it is up to the people to issue the call ... God's invitation is there for everyone.

The suitability of the person "can be seen clearly by the call of the people, whether expressed by priest, sister, family or friends speaking to them," he said.

But always, he said, the individual has the freedom to make the choice. And "if they don't it doesn't mean they are not going to fulfill, to get the fullness of Christian life. They still get it either single or married. It is a free choice, no pressure."

As for the Church since Vatican II he finds that "people make a lot of the differences and not of the similarities. We didn't come into it unprepared. The changes since Vatican II have been developments, growth -- not changes."

"We were Gospel-based then, we are Gospel-based now. Priests were ordained to serve then, although some may not think so. Priests are still ordained to serve."

"What we have now is greater freedom and probably a deeper understanding of reality of life, and what a person is."

Too often people felt the Church was going away from them, he added. "A lot of people feel the Mass has changed so much. The Mass is their essential connection. What's lacking is an understanding of development, perhaps a lack of understanding of what the Mass was before Vatican II."

"What they see is vastly different. But if they understood the Mass more fully and what the Church was teaching they would see it was basically the same but in different words ... They would find it easier to adapt, would recognize the Mass was the same, different words."

In a parish such as Our Lady of the Assumption, with 1,067 families registered, a good guide to understanding is the homily at Mass. And Father Caffrey, one parishioner said, "is really addressing the issues on a deeper level. He talks about values, about who we are as loving, caring human beings, not who we are because of the size of our bank account or status in the community."