By Gretchen Keiser

Celebrating his silver jubilee, Father Edward J. Dillon looks back on 25 years that have unfolded quite differently than he would have imagined as a seminarian.

"I don't think any of us came out (of seminary) with any expectation other than being a parish priest," Father Dillon said, recalling his anticipation of priesthood while studying in Ireland.

He came to Atlanta sight unseen, in 1967, "that was a leap of faith," from a town of 2,000 in Ireland where his father was a cattle dealer. But he was not a parish priest for a year and a half before he was asked by Archbishop Thomas Donnellan to study church law and become a part of the small, nascent agency that would become the marriage Tribunal.

From that point in the late 1960s, his work as a priest shifted toward the administrative offices of the archdiocese of Atlanta, where he spent 14 years administering the Tribunal, another five overseeing the Provincial Court of Appeals and then the last four as vicar general under two archbishops.

His parish work began with his first appointment as an assistant at St. Anthony's in Atlanta in 1967, but did not resume on a full-time basis until 1987, when he was made pastor of Holy Spirit parish in Atlanta. He still serves as its pastor, in addition to many other posts he fills for the archdiocese.

Another "parish" he serves is that of the men and women who work for the Fulton County Police Department. He began work with the police prior to the existence of a separate Fulton County department and became the new department's first chaplain.

According to two officers, Father Dillon has won the confidence of the police and serves them by friendship and counsel, so that when their problems dominate, they will tell him about it. He has been there when one of their ranks was killed in the line of duty, as he was present for personal and family problems, or the stress-related troubles of the job.

Sergeant Phil Lively, who has known him for 20 years, said, "I'd rather have him by my side than any police officer, and I'm not Catholic." He calls him "without a doubt my best friend" and adds that he is "a better shot than 99 percent of the police department," although he travels as a chaplain when he rides with police.

"He is my chaplain and he acts as a counselor to a lot of my police officers," said Chief Louis Graham. "He seems to know when to appear. He is like Jesus. He knows when to show up.

"He is so trustworthy. Even police officers who do not trust very many people trust Father Dillon," the chief said. The force of 330 includes 209 sworn police officers, covering all of the unincorporated areas of Fulton County.

In August 1991, a young police officer, Christopher May, was shot and killed while investigating a shooting in Sandy Springs. He was only the second officer to be killed in the history of the force. Father Dillon went to Hammond, Indiana, his hometown, and celebrated his funeral Mass there, leading a group of representatives and friends, and coordinated a memorial service at St. Jude's in Sandy Springs, attended by 850 officers from across Georgia.

Graham, who had been chief less then a year at the time, said, "August 19 will always be a time in my life when I will never forget Father Dillon. I was police chief less than a year and to have the tragedy of having one of my young police officers killed..." Recalling that Father Dillon came to the scene and then walked through the difficult days with the force, Graham said, "He is just a wonderful, wonderful man. We all love him."

The jurisdiction is 95 miles in length, skirting the cities. "In the years I was in the Tribunal that was really my parish," Father Dillon said, comparing it to serving as a military chaplain.

In a similar way, the marriage Tribunal where he worked full-time for 19 of his 25 years as a priest presented him constantly with the reality of human weakness. "Everyone you deal with has a problem, a major problem," he said. "It can get very wearing. On the other hand, you know it's important and it needs to be done."

When he got involved in 1968, at the request of then Father Zeb Beltran, "there were probably 175 to 200 cases (awaiting annulment proceedings) in the entire United States." Father Beltran was only working in the office part-time, and was also pastoring Holy Cross parish. The norms being used dated back to 1917.

This was just following the Second Vatican Council when new procedural norms were being developed for the United States to examine marriages that were eligible for annulment. From the few cases that were the rule for most of the 1900s, tribunals began to experience a stream and then a flood of annulment cases.

Atlanta's small office began to grow, as Father Dillon studied from a set of books provided by Father Beltran and they set up a formal process. He was sent to Catholic University of America (CUA) by Archbishop Donnellan to obtain his licentiate in canon law.

He was placed in charge of the Tribunal in 1972, the youngest officialis of a tribunal in the country while still in his twenties. Contact through the Canon Law Society of America with other dioceses that had already developed forms and procedures to examine marriage cases, led to shared expertise. Father Vincent Mulvin joined the staff and a corps of priests were trained to serve as defenders of the bond and in other capacities on an adjunct bases. "They put in a lot of time on it. We really couldn't do it without them," Father Dillon said.

He served as president of the Canon Law Society in 1976-77, and has been an instructor at the Tribunal Institute at the University of San Diego and at CUA, where he received his doctorate in canon law in 1976.

In 1983, when the Revised Code of Canon Law was issued, Father Dillon was one of the presenters who taught in two national programs outlining the code. He drew up a procedural process that pulled together a format for all the materials to complete a case and Father Peter Dora computerized it.

Demand for it from other tribunals was so great that the program was given to a computer software house and made available nationally. It is now in place in about 50 tribunals around the country.

Father Dora, who worked with Father Dillon for 10 years in the Tribunal, cited his commitment to fellow priests. "On my first day in the office he told me that the priests deserved our immediate attention," Father Dora said. "Likewise, while serving in the archbishop's office, he constantly stressed to the archdiocesan employees that their offices exist for one reason -- to serve the parishes."

In 1983 Rome gave permission for a regional Court of Appeals to be set up in Atlanta, which meant that annulment proceedings, once completed, could also go through the mandatory review and appeal process in Atlanta. Formerly they were sent on to Baltimore for review.

That court, which Father Dillon continues to oversee is run on a day-to-day basis by its administrator, Sister Marie Breitenbeck, OP, one of two Religious working for the Court of Appeals with doctorates in canon law.

The present-day Secretariat for Family Concerns, headed by Mary Ellen Hughes, was launched as an idea in 1978 when Father Dillon brought her on to try to help people who were struggling with the Church's life issues.

She credits him with giving her the direction and the freedom to search out what was needed at that time, learn new skills, and, after several months, to begin a volunteer-based program to help women in crisis pregnancies. "Father Dillon's idea specifically was to set it up as a program design. It was never the idea for me to run it, but to turn it over to Catholic Social Services, and it worked."

After Crisis Pregnancy Services began, her office turned to a variety of outreach programs to families, including teaching on natural family planning and marriage preparation sessions. All rely on trained volunteers. There are now eight programs under the umbrella of the office, including Pre-Cana, Sponsor Couple Training, Single Parent Workshop, Re-Marriage Workshop, NFP, Engaged Encounter, Retrouvaille and Beginning Experience.

Ms. Hughes, who credits Father Dillon with teaching her how to do budgets, including her own personal budget, says he encouraged her to return to graduate school for her master's in social work and for further specialized study on marriage and the family.

"I feel like, in a way, I've grown up here (at the Catholic Center) and I've watched him grow so much since I came in 1978," she said. "We've gone through a lot of stages in this diocese. We've gone through a lot in our friendship ... I have watched him go through excruciating pain (for the diocese) and have to hold it inside and he's done it. It is his loyalty and his commitment to his position. I've watched him adapt to three very different administrations. The thing people don't know is how shy he is."

The jubilee Mass, marking the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in Carlow in June 1967, was held at Holy Spirit parish on June 7. Homilist Monsignor R. Donald Kiernan, the first pastor he worked with at St. Anthony's 25 years ago and a friend throughout, used the Book of Ruth as his focus.

As Ruth told her adopted mother, a priest tells Jesus, "Thy people shall be my people," Monsignor Kiernan said.

"Father Dillon's service to the Church as an assistant pastor, a pastor, a judge of the church's Tribunal, a vicar general, have been marked by his generosity of spirit and devotion to his duty. His voluntary service has been marked with the same generosity of spirit and devotion to duty," he said.

"It would be, I am sure, embarrassing to Father Dillon, were I to enumerate all that he is presently doing. But let me assure you that what he is doing is being done with the same enthusiasm and devotion that he had the day he first took up his duties twenty-five years ago."