By Rita McInerney

Father James Fennessy, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Alpharetta, is strong on collaborative ministry.

With parishioners and with his priests he finds that working together has helped him "share and perfect my own call from Christ."

Springing from the fertile soil of Ireland where the parish priest rarely shared his pedestal, he has taken root and flourished in a Southern culture.

Since immediately after his ordination in 1968, service as assistant and later as pastor, he has come to know American Catholics as "supportive and good to their priests." He has met them in large metro area parishes, in small town congregations and in a proud historic downtown church. His flocks were of every age and religious fervency and he is grateful to them.

Growing to know and love them helped him "make his life real meaningful." He is, he admits, a priest who feels "very blessed."

He freely gives credit to those others who have helped him grow in his service to God's people. They're the clergy of the archdiocese, who know him as a brother Irishman who likes to win at golf; priests who concelebrate with him on the altar, and parochial vicars who call him No. 1 man in the rectory.

They appreciate him for his pastoral gifts, his insight, humor and swift repartee. Twice they've elected him to five-year terms on the clergy personnel board.

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Sunday morning is a busy time at St. Thomas Aquinas where Father Fennessy has been pastor since 1983. There are 1,400 children enrolled in religious education and close to 250 women and men participating in adult education.

Religious education there follows the model detailed in the U.S. bishops' pastoral on that topic. The letter was clear on the need for adults to grow and deepen in their faith knowledge. Many Catholics, Father Fennessy said, still hold to the "traditional notion" and "think education is completed with confirmation."

"We try and bring about the idea of interconnection," he said, mentioning that the bishops, in their pastoral stressed the three-way message, catechesis, the community gathered for worship, and service.

There is a constant need that people be "called and invited. Those who have responded, and their families, have benefited." Many see themselves growing in love of the church and of Scripture, he added.

"I like to think we're close knit, but also have a consciousness of the world outside," the pastor said of the 1,700-family parish. Two parishes are spin-offs, St. Andrew's in Roswell and St. Benedict's in Duluth. There is a mix of younger families, singles, older couples on fixed incomes, some relocated to the area where their children live, and a number of native Catholics in the area for generations.

He mentions how the parish expressed this consciousness for others. It has funded and built two homes for poor families, each time in partnership with another area church. It is involved with north Fulton community charities, both church and civic. "The St. Vincent de Paul organizes just about all of that," he explained.

Father Fennessy spent the night of Dec. 4, his day off, at Central Presbyterian night shelter. "He did it last year, too," according to Sally Leeds, whose husband Jim is in charge of parish volunteers.

There is a "huge group" of volunteers from the parish, Mrs. Leeds said. They are assigned 14 nights each shelter season. Eight men volunteer to spend the night and anywhere from six to ten people cook and serve dinner and also pack a breakfast and lunch to hand out to the homeless men.

"We try very hard to involve adults" in the parish life, Father Fennessy said. Over two years ago a building for religious education and activities was dedicated and is used constantly by the many groups and organizations in the parish family, from cradle to senior citizens.

The coming together and sharing so important to Father Fennessy in his relationships is appreciated by Father Al Jowdy, parochial vicar at the parish.

He finds his boss a priest of "life-giving" dimension. "He has a great love for people in the Church. He really loves the priests. Everybody in his parish recognizes it. He broadcasts it."

You really haven't seen him until you've seen him around a group of people," Father Jowdy said. On Sunday morning his bear hugs, his strong Irish brogue calling out greetings are "infections." There is no choice, the young priest said, but to enter into his love and good will.

Father Fennessy places trust in the people around him to exercise their ministry, his assistant remarked. This gives them freedom to make mistakes and benefit from them, helps them to develop as good leaders.

He's assembled a "really capable team." What that means is that the parish is not dependent on the priests to meet their every need. "He has talented people, capable people, in education, outreach ministry and liturgical ministry. This does two things. It frees the priests to be present in sacramental ministry and enables the people to realize their vocation as baptized, to give and receive ministry from one another," Father Jowdy said.

Terry Zobel, described by Father Jowdy as one of the "pioneers in RCIA in the archdiocese" and Father Fennessy attended together a program of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate held at Emory University in April, 1985.

Immediately after, she said, they started to make "sizeable changes" in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and began working with small groups seeking to enter the Church.

When the first class of three young women was received at the Easter Vigil, she recalled him telling them, "I'm not sure in this process who was converting whom."

"There was real dialogue. They really shared their life. He does the same. It makes for a real bonding," Mrs. Zobel recalled.

He remains very involved in the RCIA process, she said. "He's there every week." At present he's leading a group that's in the process of annulment.

"We decided to find out in the very beginning if an annulment was involved. They would have their own group, go at their own pace. This would serve two purposes: they would be going through the RCIA and would be a support group. This is really a pastoral approach to RCIA, more personal not structured or rigid."

Mrs. Zobel, adult education coordinator at St. Thomas Aquinas, said Father Fennessy also attended the two-week training session for Stephen Ministers held in St. Louis. This "very pastoral" ministry appeals to him, she said.

Mrs. Leeds, who works with Mrs. Zobel in the Stephen Ministry, said Father Fennessy "pushed for it for a long time before the parish council approved funding." There are 19 active Stephen Ministers in the parish now with 13 more participating in the third class.

"He's a wonderful man, very accepting of everybody and their opinions," Mrs. Leeds said of her pastor.

The parish is now in its third season of RENEW. Father Fennessy and staff members have their own group to share "how we see and respond to the Gospel. We work together closely. It's not led by me, I can receive and give," he said.

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"You could say I'm one of PJ's boys," Father Fennessy acknowledges. That would be Monsignor Patrick J. O'Connor the archdiocesan legend who was the first priest to recruit young Irishmen for the priesthood in Georgia.

"He was a great speaker. He went around to the different high schools. I heard him about 1961 and seriously thought about the priesthood." You young Fennessy had noticed that two uncles who were priests in Glasgow were "pretty happy people."

To a "young Irish guy" the monsignor's talk about the many people with Irish names in Georgia who belonged to no church was challenging. "There were no priests when they came over," the monsignor told his young audience. Their need for the Gospel caused many of them to go to other denominations.

He went to high school with the Trappists in Mount Melleray, County Waterford. He boarded although the school was just about eight miles from his home village of Newcastle neat Clonmel in County Tipperary. But the road was over the Knockmealdown Mountain and there was only one car in the family.

The home farm well fit the old Irish saying, "A rag in every bush," Father Fennessy said. It means to have "a little bit of everything." There were 20 milk cows, cattle, sheep and goats, wheat and sugar beet crops. Parents, two sons and a daughter were well fed.

When he entered St. Patrick's Seminary in Carlow after high school, classmates included Father Terry Kane and the Late Father Vince Mulvin. One year ahead were Father Edward Dillon, Father Paul Fogarty and the late Monsignor Peter Ludden.

They were of real benefit to him when he came to Atlanta. It was good to have their companionship when they could take a free day together, he recalled.

His first parish assignment in 1968 was Holy Cross in Tucker while Father (now Bishop) Eusebius Beltran was pastor and Father Tom Kenny an assistant.

Holy Cross at that time had two missions, Norcross and Lawrenceville. One of the first Masses he said after his arrival was at Wages Funeral Home in Lawrenceville. "I don't think I had ever been in a funeral home before."

Father Beltran put him in charge of altar boys. That gave him the chance to know them and their parents. He visited newcomers and attended all the parish get-togethers for them.

In Atlanta, "we were all newcomers together." In his village parish "I don't know if anyone ever registered." It seemed "they had always been there," he said.

He soon learned that "people here take ownership of the church as far as forming community." In the Ireland he knew, "99 percent Catholic," it was the neighbors who responded in times of joy or sadness, not the community formed by the parish that Catholics in the South share.

"The church is very important here, the events and outreach completely different" than in his native land, a country he proclaims in his hearty brogue and pleasant countryman's countenance.

In 1971 he left Holy Cross for St. Peter's in LaGrange, a parish more like those he knew in Ireland. Here was a congregation much smaller than Holy Cross but just as supportive. It was here he came to fully realize how "extremely active" Holy Cross was, with its many young families new to the Atlanta area.

He had arrived in LaGrange anticipating relief from the demands of the telephone. To his surprise, "it almost drove me crazy. The phone never rang."

He traded the quiet telephone for the frequent ring of the doorbell when he moved to Sacred Heart in downtown Atlanta in 1972. In the next year he learned that the poor wore many faces, could be genteel men and women as well as the homeless. When the doorbell rang, "You never knew who would be on the other side," he remembered.

At Sacred Heart there was commitment to social justice and outreach to the poor, sometimes at the parish level, other times in ecumenical groups. There were patients to visit at St. Joseph's Infirmary and calls on elderly and shut-in parishioners.

Leaving Sacred Heart in 1973, he spent two years as assistant at another large community of young families, Corpus Christi in Stone Mountain. In 1975 he had his first pastorate, St. Bernadette's in Cedartown, where he succeeded Father Pat Mulhern. From there it was a move in 1977 to the pastorate at St. John Vianney in Lithia Springs. He remained there until his appointment to Alpharetta in 1983.

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Sister Valentina Sheridan, RSM, was on the staff of St. Thomas Aquinas when he arrived. She had served with Father Dan O'Connor, his predecessor, for three years.

In the four years she worked with Father Fennessy she knew him as a "very pastoral and loving person," good in one-on-one situations and quick to respond to someone in need.

Father Fennessy's secretary, Marsha Mueller, is used to his "spontaneous type of ministry." For the most part he takes appointments and tries to operate within that structure. Yet "it seems when he gets to the office, people just seem to know he's there."

She has found him to have a "real gift for focusing on the individual's problem, not distracted by what he's just heard or the next appointment.

Al Gallagher, one of five permanent deacons at the parish, said they all serve on the altar, rotate preaching, take turns at baptism, marriage preparation, and in performing marriages and funerals.

"He treats us like clergy. He's a gift, He lets us function and to our fullest capacity," the deacon said.

"My wife Dorothy is parish bookkeeper. She keeps him sound financially and he keeps me sound spiritually."

Another permanent deacon, Don Nadeau, recalled the time his wife was taken to the hospital. "He came as soon as her heard."

When he arrived in the department where she was waiting to be X-rayed "he was all choked-up and teary-eyed. 'Sheila, I would give anything not to see you like this,' he told her."

Deacon Nadeau said his pastor "is willing to visit anyone and shares himself and his prayers" in an open ad spontaneous way.

Father Fennessy likes to golf with other priests, his "buddies," on his day off. He can break 100 "if I cheat. I just about always break 100, shoot in the 90s," he said with a small grin.

Father Jowdy confided another way he relaxes. "Every afternoon at 5 he becomes a couch potato" to watch Judge Wappner's "People's Court" on TV.

His assistant sees his "addiction" to this show as another example of just how much of a "people person" he is. And "his judgements are generally better than the judge's."

This is the third in a series of occasional stories profiling priests serving in the archdiocese.