By Susan Stevenot Sullivan, Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Father Mark Lacey returned to Atlanta from Rome the week of his priestly ordination, having completed his studies at the North American College there.

The newly ordained priest’s international background was established early in his life. He was born June 11, 1967, in Reading, Berkshire, England. His mother, Mary, is Irish and his father, Patrick, is English.

He moved with his family to Connecticut as a teenager. The family later moved to Atlanta, where he completed a business degree at Emory University. After working as a certified public accountant, he began to realize that his calling was elsewhere.

Prayerful evenings at the Cathedral of Christ the King, near where he lived, underscored a quiet prompting to the possibility of priesthood.

“It was a gradual awareness,” he said before his ordination June 3. “Many men go to the seminary because they know they should be priests. I went to the seminary to find out if I should be a priest. My first two years were a time of heavy discernment. By the time I went to Rome to study I was secure in my vocation.”

Father Lacey said his summer pastoral service also played a major role in the development of his vocation. His service included Holy Family Church in Marietta with Father Paul Fogarty, St. Joseph’s Church in Athens under Msgr. Peter Dora, and two summers at Prince of Peace in Buford with Father Peter Rau.

“After my diaconate ordination (July, 1994) I found preaching, proclaiming the Gospel and baptizing to be very positive experiences. By the end of last summer I felt comfortable with those aspects of ministry,” he said. “I also got some positive feedback which was very reinforcing.”

“It’s one thing to be in a seminary and another to be accepted by people as functioning in a ministerial role,” he continued.

“Mark has tremendous patience,” his mother said. “He is very good with people, especially young people. He will want to do everything the right way, the way it was meant to be done.”

His only relatives in the United States, in addition to his parents, are a brother, Sean and two sisters, Catherine and Mary Anne, who live in this area. Visiting from Ireland for the ordination were a priest uncle and an aunt who is also his godmother. Another aunt is a Sister of Loreto in Calcutta.

His siblings were all assigned roles in his first Mass, June 4, at 11:30 a.m. at Holy Spirit Parish, Atlanta. He is assigned as parochial vicar at St. John Neumann in Lilburn.