(This is the first in a series of articles personalizing people and programs that benefit from the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal, to be held in the archdiocese on Sunday, March 11.)

By Paula Day

Patrick Kingery, 26, who is studying for the priesthood for this archdiocese, is a native vocation, the son of Georgians who became Catholic while at the University of Georgia in Athens.

With these deep roots here, he also represents the New South that is emerging at the end of this century. Bilingual in Spanish and English, Kingery says his involvement with the Hispanic culture and the Hispanic people’s history of struggle has sustained his desire to give his life to the priesthood.

He is one of 16 seminarians studying, either in the U.S. or Ireland, for the archdiocesan priesthood. Two candidates, Ron Fuchs and Paul Flood, are to be ordained as priests this spring.

A first theology student at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Kingery is the son of Bill and Jolaine Kingery of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Atlanta.

When he finished his undergraduate studies at St. John Vianney Seminary College in Miami in 1986, he wasn’t certain about taking the next step—entering a major seminary. He hadn’t ruled out the priesthood, he says, but he just wasn’t sure.

However, his years in Miami had had a major impact on his life. “I became friends with seminarians from Latin America. My exposure to the Spanish culture helped me see a whole aspect of life I’d never known before, a people whose life experiences had been so different from my own, their struggles, their poverty, their experiences of social injustice. I wanted to work with them,” he said. “You can know about a culture on an academic level, but when you know people of that culture, that takes on a deeper meaning.”

Kingery returned to Atlanta, searching and praying for direction in his life. At the time Catholic Social Services needed a bilingual director for its legalization program, helping immigrants illegally in this county to take advantage of a one-year amnesty offered by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The post let him use his linguistic gifts and help a group of people with whom he empathized. He remembers now his nervousness about the responsibility and recalls his mother saying, “Every day do your best job and trust in God.” The job often demanded coping with emergencies and the eleventh hour plight of poor people trying to benefit from the law. He was still at the INS Office at midnight sometimes and he was called by them to help when they were confronted with crises like a group of migrant workers dumped at the office by an unscrupulous boss.

During this time Kingery realized he would only be truly happy in giving himself in service to others, but he struggled with how to do this.

He thought of doing social work but finally admitted, “Anything less than giving my life to the priesthood wouldn’t be enough. I wouldn’t feel fulfilled.”

Kingery is quick to say he is not implying that priests are the only ones called to be holy; that is the calling of every baptized person.

“But Religious and priests consecrate their lives with an emphasis on the world beyond. I want my own life to be a witness to God’s tremendous love.”

Others have influenced and inspired Kingery. He mentions Monsignor Michael Regan, present pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Carrollton, who baptized him and gave him his First Communion; Father Terry Young, principal at St. Pius X High School, and Father Jorge Christancho, whose ministry to Hispanic newcomers in Atlanta was an inspiration to him.

An incident in the spring of 1988 helped finalize his decision to return to the seminary.

He visited Father Brent Bohan, who served the Hispanic community from Immaculate Heart of Mary parish, shortly before the 33-year-old priest died.

“When are you going to return to the seminary?” Father Bohan asked him. “I want you to know I’m still praying for you.”

“He was there dying and he continued to think about the needs of the Church,” Kingery recalls.

Seminarians are in a period of formation for the ministerial priesthood, Kingery explained. They live in community with other seminarians, develop their spiritual life and attend regular university-level classes working toward a master’s degree in theology.

St. Mary’s Seminary has 110 men, ranging in age from 22 to 62, from dioceses in the East and Midwest. They live together, pray together, eat together. Their communal prayer life consists of the Liturgy of the Hours in the morning and evening and daily Mass. A spiritual director and a spiritual mentor work with them to assess and discern their vocational and spiritual growth. Kingery and another seminarian from Atlanta, Gregory Goolsby, will be installed as lectors in Baltimore, Feb. 14, by Archbishop Eugene Marino, SSJ.

Kingery says he dreams about the day when he will minister to and serve the people of God in north Georgia.

“It helps in the study. Someday someone will be asking me to explain the mysteries of our faith or be with them during a particular struggle in their life, or more importantly, administer one of the sacraments. Dreaming about that helps you get through the daily life of the seminary.”

This year the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal designates $132,400 to support the preparation and education of the 16 seminarians of the archdiocese. Eleven men are studying in the United States; five in Ireland.