By Gretchen Keiser

A 26-year-old Dublin, Ireland native, J. Gerard O’Connor, has been appointed master of ceremonies to Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, the first layman to hold the post in this archdiocese.

O’Connor, who earlier studied for five years to become a priest, decided in 1987 to wait before taking the step of ordination as a deacon preparatory to priesthood. Since then he has been in residence at Holy Spirit parish in Atlanta for one year and taught one year at St. Pius X High School in Atlanta. He was married this spring to Donna Donnelly O’Connor, an Atlanta native.

In addition to assisting the archbishop as he travels in Georgia to liturgical celebrations and civic appointments, O’Connor will also carry out some administrative tasks at the Catholic Center. Because of this he also has been given the title of a vice chancellor of the archdiocese.

Archbishop Marino said he had been calling on priests of the archdiocese for the past year to be his master of ceremonies and wanted instead to “maximize the availability of priests for priestly work in the parish.” In this position a lay person “could serve and free the priests,” he said. O’Connor comes with the necessary ability and competence to serve as master of ceremonies, the archbishop said.

His chancery-related duties are largely unspecified at this time, the archbishop said, but under canon law one of the duties of a vice chancellor is to be clerk of chancery records. Deacon William Lyday, who is also vice chancellor, is in charge of acquiring, maintaining and overseeing property, securing contracts and legal documents and other matters related to parishes and the creation of new parishes, the archbishop said.

Both would come under the direction of the chancellor, a post that has been vacant since the death of Monsignor Peter Ludden.

O’Connor, whose first name is pronounced “Jared,” the Irish pronunciation, will drive the archbishop while he is traveling within Georgia, make sure that advance plans and arrangements are clear, and direct the flow of ceremonies in which he is involved. Assuring that the rubrics of the ceremony are followed appropriately, choreographing the presence of the archbishop, concelebrants, deacons and others, and later assuring that the archbishop “gets away on time” to his next commitment is the essence of the master of ceremonies’ job, O’Connor said.

“It takes a lot of pressure off of him so he can be with the people,” he said. The weekend of June 24 and the week that followed included two Confirmations in Fayetteville and Jonesboro, and a groundbreaking in Blue Ridge.

His training at All Hallows College in Dublin, where he studied as a seminarian for five years and served as director of music for one year, is critical to carrying out the post. The “much-varied” education includes liturgical training, theological training, public speaking and other skills now needed in his work.

As a seminarian he served one summer at St. Pius X parish in Conyers and two at All Saints in Dunwoody. Before entering All Hallows he worked in Europe and Ireland, at one point in youth work in a ghetto of 15-story tenements in Dublin.

He taught church history and Old and New Testament at St. Pius, and considers Atlanta home now, “a beautiful city … especially the spring and the autumn.”

A representative of the liturgy committee of the National Conference of Catholic bishops said having a layperson as master of ceremonies was not unusual in the Church around the world, particularly in Latin America.