BY GRETCHEN KEISER

When Father Tom Carroll, MS, was ordained a priest in Newton, Mass. 40 years ago, it was to the strains of the wedding march.

His LaSalette class of seven men was entering priesthood in the basement church of Sacred Heart, while the granddaughter of a famous Boston mayor was being wed upstairs in the main sanctuary.

The seasoned pastor told the story on himself May 1, after his parish community, St. Oliver Plunkett in Snellville, hosted a jubilee Mass in his honor and later a dinner for several hundred people.

Coming from “a very ordinary family that struggled through the Depression years” in Connecticut, the third of four boys, Father Carroll recalled that he “never heard a voice calling, ‘Come, follow Me.’”

He went to public school, studied catechism on “released time” when Catholics were given permission to leave the grounds and study their faith for a few school hours a week. Then he switched to Catholic school for fifth through eighth grade, and greatly admired a priest who took youth ice skating, to ball games and swimming.

When a LaSalette priest visited his eighth-grade classroom to talk about priestly vocations, Tommy Carroll raised his hand and said he was interested. He came home and told his mother, Mae, ‘Mom, I’m going away in September to be a priest.”

No doubt the wedding was the Boston social event of the day on May 1, 1954, but the commitment made by Father Carroll is still being celebrated in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

“He’s always been a great friend of all priests, a great example to everybody. He’s great with the Religious as well as the diocesan clergy and a great credit to the LaSalette Fathers,” said Father James Cummings, a Marist who is a chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Atlanta. Twenty to thirty priests and brothers took part in the jubilee Mass, including Father Cummings.

For the Hartford, Conn. Province of the Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette, Father Carroll has served as novice master, provincial chancellor and director of the National Shrine of Our Lady of LaSalette.

Once assigned to Atlanta archdiocesan parishes staffed by the LaSalettes, he has been pastor of St. Francis of Assisi, Cartersville, founding pastor of St. Ann’s, Marietta where he spent 13 years, and most recently pastor of the Snellville parish.

The greeting welcoming people to the jubilee Mass called the parish “St. Oliver Plunkett Catholic community.” Community-building is one of the jubilarian’s gifts, his parishioners said.

Pat and Ralph Bulger were one of the founding families who met with Father Terry Kane when he began the mission in Snellville in the late 1970s. From about 250 families, the parish has blossomed to over 1000 families today, Pat Bulger estimated.

Father Carroll is “a wonderful man, a people-person,” she said. Jane Layng, another active parish worker, said he has strengthened the parish in its outreach, fostering programs for such significant parish groups as the seniors and the teens.

Homilist Father Frederick R. Flaherty, MS, who has been his friend for many years, noted that Father Carroll’s “energy and enterprise led to the development of three parishes” from the one parish in Cartersville when he arrived and that St. Ann’s mushroomed from a handful of families with no permanent structures to a huge, vibrant parish community.

“In Tommy Carroll’s world, ideals and reality meet with frightening speed,” Father Flaherty joked.

“Father Carroll is constantly busy. He has a lot of energy,” agreed Cecilia Johnson, who has been housekeeper at the Snellville rectory for three successive pastors.

In addition to his priestly gifts, she said “he is a great cook” with a penchant for grilling fish and chicken for fellow LaSalettes on a regular basis.

“He’s a great shopper,” she added.

In addition to old friends from north Georgia parishes, Father Carroll’s brothers Bill, Roger and Jack and his sister-in-law Fran came to Snellville for the jubilee.

Father Carroll took the occasion to encourage young men in the parish to consider the priesthood.

“Would I do it all again? Yes…I’d be crazy to retire, especially when I’m enjoying myself so much. I learned a long time ago that you and I are but clay in His hands,” he said.