Three to be ordained priests for archdiocese

By Lew Moores

ARCHDIOCESE — Disparate paths brought them to the doors of a seminary six years ago, paths that morphed into a singular one that now leads them to the priesthood.

One of the three seminarians had hoped to become a millionaire. Another did not make his first Communion until 1993, a month before his 27th birthday.

And the last, eldest of the three had spent his adulthood in the religious life as a religious Brother.

They will be ordained priests on May 19 at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in Cincinnati. Two are from the Cincinnati area; another was raised in the Baltimore area but came to Cincinnati to attend Xavier University and pursue a career in business.

When they are all ordained, they will join the 177 active priests already ministering in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Deacon Tom McCarthy

Deacon Tom McCarthy grew up in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area and was raised in a religious household; as a youngster, he was an altar boy.

"Everything flowed from God," said Deacon McCarthy, 36. "My parents were traditional Catholics who instilled in me God was first, family second and everything else follows."

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Deacon Tom McCarthy

He decided to major in marketing there; "I liked money," he said unabashedly.

After college, Deacon McCarthy spent two years in Baltimore and in the Philadelphia-south New Jersey areas doing door-to-door sales of entertainment and dining coupons. He worked on commission — "If you didn’t sell anything, you didn’t make any money," he said.

Some weeks he found himself working 100 hours. He knocked on the doors of Section 8 housing and million-dollar homes. He talked to gas station attendants and CEOs. It was a humbling experience.

"You’ve got 15, 20 seconds to make an impression," he recalls. "Your enthusiasm is what sells. You had to come up with a way to carry yourself. You had to be a jack-of-all-trades. You had to be able to deal with a wide variety of people."

Deacon McCarthy eventually landed a job with Union Central Life Insurance Co. He was ambitious, and a series of promotions soon followed.

"I wanted to make a million bucks by the time I was 30," said Deacon McCarthy. "I thought being in sales was going to be one of the best ways of getting there. Sellers end up moving into executive positions. The sales force moves up."

There were the perks, the travel, taking clients out and showing them a good time. He was in his mid-20s. He was dating, having fun. He bought a home in Fairfax.

"I saw myself on the fast track," he said.

Deacon McCarthy was at Crowley’s Tavern in Mount Adams one night when he walked outside, and in moments his memories as an altar boy came flooding back. He remembers it as a beautiful night as he walked over to Holy Cross-Immaculata Church and looked out over the city, its downtown, the Ohio River and Northern Kentucky beyond. The evening, the majestic view, invited reflection.

"I started thinking to myself, ‘what’s the purpose of my life, what’s my responsibility to God?’" Deacon McCarthy recalls. "That was the first time, since maybe I was seven or eight years old, the first time since post-adolescence that the idea of the priesthood was placed in my mind."

At about the same time, other things happened, and Deacon McCarthy wondered at the coincidence of it all. The house he bought turned out to be less than a block away from St. Margaret of Cortona Church. He also reconnected with a friend who was now attending a seminary in Baltimore.

"When I bought the house, it was one way of saying ‘no, I’m not going to be called,’ because now I’ve got roots," said Deacon McCarthy. "But at the same time, the way God’s providence is, it’s right next to a church. It was only a block away. I had to pass the church on my way to work. There was an increased realization of my calling. It was growing, developing."

Deacon McCarthy’s friend in Baltimore also talked with him about how he had answered the call.

"He talked about the importance of spending time away from the world, praying, spending time meditating and reflecting," said Deacon McCarthy.

One day Deacon McCarthy was out driving to work, looked over and noticed that a fellow motorist was a priest, his white collar visible. When he arrived at work, co-workers were talking about the church and the priesthood. When he went home, he saw a priest being featured on "Law & Order." It was uncanny. "I knew then God was truly calling me to be a priest," he said.

He came to talk with the vocation director at Mount St. Mary’s, and by the spring, he had put his house on the market. He broke up with his girlfriend and entered the seminary.

"Most of the people I dated were probably most surprised," he said.

Now he was looking at six more years of academics after leaving that behind some seven years earlier.

"The idea of six more years of study was not very attractive to me," he said. "I was very happy to leave after four years of college."

Deacon McCarthy stuck with it through the academics, those attacks of doubts — "quite a few" over the years, he said — and some anxiety. "It was tough," he said of his studies. "I’m not a scholar." He found that his career in sales helped during his years at the seminary.

"The virtue of perseverance is something I learned door-to-door," said Deacon McCarthy. "You think about the awesomeness of the call, the great responsibility that comes with that. A priest is something completely different than any other occupation in the world. It’s the church recognizing you have the call. Some people think they have the right to be ordained, but that’s a gift that God gives to some and is confirmed by the church."

His abiding companions are faith and trust. His house took 15 months to sell, and he went through his savings. Money, which had been important, shank in significance.

"The Lord made it very clear that you’re not going to have any money, and also that you’re never going to have to worry about it," said Deacon McCarthy. "After I realized that, I never worried about money."

And Deacon McCarthy is optimistic about the future of the priesthood.

"I believe in the next 15, 20 years we’ll have well over 100 seminarians," he said. "The youth today are much more spiritual, much more desiring or in need of faith, purpose and identity. Without the priest, Christ is not brought to the people. There’s a desire for faith and a particular religion. Families are timely now. They are talking about the religious life and the priesthood. They are learning in a positive way that this is an option."

Deacon Ron Haft

Deacon Ron Haft, 40, was born and raised in Colerain Township and graduated from Colerain High School. While he was baptized Catholic as an infant, his was not a particularly religious or practicing family.

"Our family fell away from the practice of the faith," he recalls. "That happened probably when I was in the first or second grade."

Instead, college and career called. He entered the culinary arts program at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College Culinary arts. But he concluded after he had worked as a cook at a couple of local retirement communities that he wanted to branch off in a different direction in the food industry.

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Deacon Ron Haft

So he returned to school, this time to study dietetics. While there he heard about an opening at the Lebanon Correctional Institution (LCI), a close-security state prison. In 1991, toured the prison.

"I thought this was interesting," said Deacon Haft. "I never encountered anything like that before, growing up as I did in a nice, quiet suburban community."

He took the job at LCI as a dietetic technician, working under the direction of a registered dietician. He worked in both the food services department and inmate health services. In food service, he supervised preparing diet trays for inmates on special diets. With health services, he would work to provide nutrition assessments and education for inmates dealing with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, liver and kidney disease and HIV disease, among other health problems.

Deacon Haft’s work involved one-on-one contact with the inmates, which could be both taxing and a challenge.

"It was a very interesting experience," said Deacon Haft. "I worked with people who are not always concerned about their health. They can be manipulating to see what they can gain. On the other hand, you can have inmates extremely concerned about their health. As it went on, I probably became less threatening to them. I started to settle into my professional role."

Deacon Haft spent a decade at LCI. He had a vision of serving more than one state prison. But he also had another vision — religion began to insinuate itself into his life.

It happened casually. An acquaintance kept inviting him to attend a Pentecostal service. Deacon Haft finally relented, if for no other reason than "he would stop asking me." The service intrigued him — so much so that he later asked a friend if he could attend a Catholic Mass with him at St. Bernard Parish, Taylor’s Creek, in Colerain Township. He went and met the pastor.

His friend told the pastor, "This is my friend, and he wants to join the parish."

"I’m like, I do?" Deacon Haft recalls.

He began attending Catholic information classes, becoming more immersed in the faith. On Sept. 26, 1993, at the age of 26, he made his first Communion. His parents were there. He was confirmed the following spring.

"A little bit late, but that’s all right," said Deacon Haft.

While working at LCI, Deacon Haft also began teaching in the parish religion program at St. Bernard. A couple of friends asked if he had ever considered the priesthood.

"I really had not thought about it," said Deacon Haft. "During this time, after coming back to the church, I wanted to be married. I dated some wonderful ladies. Our relationships were good as friends, but it was obvious that we were not compatible for marriage. I continued to think about marriage, but then people would continue to mention about becoming a priest."

Regardless, Deacon Haft bought a home in Colerain in 1997. He was meticulous as a homeowner; everything was neat and in its place.

"I loved fixing things, ripping out walls, doing wiring, planting bushes," he said. "I really dove into home-ownership."

But then his father, Richard H. Haft Jr., was diagnosed with cancer. His family had come back to the faith since Deacon Haft’s return, and his father asked for the consolation a parish priest could offer. The late Father Stanley Doerger came and attended to his father’s spiritual needs.

Deacon Haft spent as much time as he could with his father. "I was praying liturgy of the hours aloud next to him while he was in a coma, saying the words into his ear," said Deacon Haft. "I think because I had grown in my faith that I was able to accept what the inevitable was."

His father died at home on Good Friday April 1998. "I savor every moment I could spend with him," said Deacon Haft.

The family had lakeside property in Kentucky and Deacon Haft had purchased a Bible for the Kentucky house. He brought the Bible to Mass one day to have it blessed, and the priest asked him, "Ron, when are you entering the seminary?" Then the priest walked away. The final seed was planted.

Deacon Haft began the process for admission to Mount St. Mary’s. He resigned from LCI, sold his house and car, and in 2001, he entered the seminary.

His family and friends were supportive. A girlfriend even wrote a letter of recommendation.

Mount St. Mary’s has meant a regimen — Mass in the morning, breakfast, classes, lunch, classes, finally evening prayer. They are free to go off-campus; indeed, they are encouraged. "It’s encouraged so we can make a solid, healthy relationship outside," said Deacon Haft. "We’re being prepared to serve in the world, not to break away from the world. We need to interact with the world."

The academic pursuits have been something of a challenge.

"Studies have been a challenge for me," said Deacon Haft. "I’m used to a very concrete way of thinking — what works, and how do we get the job done? That makes it difficult to study theology, because theology requires asking questions, reflecting, with groundings in philosophical systems. But emotionally I am more stable now. I attribute that to being able to go to daily Mass and develop a solid prayer life."

And his decade of employment at LCI had not been for naught. It was a window on a world he would not have otherwise seen.

"My experiences at LCI helped me to see what Christ meant when He said, ‘I am present in the least among you,’" said Deacon Haft. "Any positive impact that I may have contributed will not be known in this life but in the life to come."

Deacon Haft is also an outdoorsman with an interest in hunting and fishing, bicycling and water-skiing. He belongs to the National Rifle Association; a fascination with firearms stemmed from LCI, where employees were asked to qualify with firearms.

He, too, is optimistic about the future of the priesthood.

"There’s a couple of reasons," he begins. "One, people want and expect and have a right to good priests. And we are encountering more young men who are considering a call to the priesthood. Considering the history of the church, it has gone through dark periods, and it always comes into a very bright period."

Deacon Reynaldo Taylor

Deacon Reynaldo Taylor’s path to the priesthood has probably been the most direct of the four seminarians. He was born and raised in the city’s West End, an African-American community, and attended elementary school at St. Joseph, a parish that has been around for more than 160 years.

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Deacon Rey Taylor

"My seeds of apostolic work were planted very young," said Deacon Taylor. "So, that’s one of the reasons I joined a Franciscan order out of high school." He subsequently earned an associate’s degree in religious studies from Chatfield College and a bachelor’s in social work from Thomas More College.

The Brothers’ religious work has taken him to St. Francis Hospital, teaching Bible school at old St. Francis in Over-the-Deacon Rey TaylorRhine, to Drake Hospital and the old Longview State Hospital. Beginning in 1975, he would spend the next five years in Fayetteville, in Brown County, working with poor and neglected children. Deacon Taylor was then transferred from Brown County to Iowa, where he would work in group homes established by religious Brothers in Davenport.

"Sending a city kid to Iowa — that was quite an experience," Deacon Taylor recalls. "What a culture shock."

The governor of Iowa had also agreed back then to accept a large contingent of "unaccompanied minors" of Southeast Asian boat people — from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos — into the state and its various public and private social agencies. They were boys whose parents had left them at the boats for the journey across the sea. When they arrived in Iowa, they were mixed in with the American minors. The Asian minors wore gold rings. Deacon Taylor said gold had been melted down, fashioned into rings and given to the children to be used as barter in the event they were intercepted at sea by pirates.

"I had never heard such tales," said Deacon Taylor. "Iowa was my first time outside of the Cincinnati area. There also weren’t too many folks who looked like me."

When Deacon Taylor returned to Cincinnati he was assigned to St. Joseph Orphanage residential care program in Monfort Heights. After three or four years, he moved on to St. John Social Services. They had 30 to 40 volunteers and a staff of eight religious women, who were in their 60s, 70s and 80s. "They had more years of service than I had on the planet," said Deacon Taylor.

There was a move on to make St. John Social Services a one-stop Catholic agency. Rather than have clients bounce from those departments that individually handled food and clothing and so on, a centralized intake unit would address all needs at once. Deacon Taylor’s job was to interview the poor and homeless, do an assessment and come up with a plan of action.

"Someone said it appears we were spoiling people," said Deacon Taylor. "I said

When he arrived at St. John’s, staffed by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, about 95 percent of their funds came from private donors, mostly elderly women on fixed incomes who would send the Sisters $10 to $20 a month.

"That was through the legacy of the Sisters since the 1930s," said Deacon Taylor. "They cultivated those donors. They were asking the Sisters to keep them in their prayers."

But over the years, said Deacon Taylor, those donors began to pass away. St. John’s was given money by the Community Chest and cultivated new donors from individual parishes. They also started to tap into downtown’s corporate community.

He eventually became associate executive director but refused to let administrative duties insulate him from the people who sought their services.

"I did that with the stipulation that no matter what job I took I would always have time to do interviews with clients in our intake department several hours a week," said Deacon Taylor. "For me personally, I wanted to stay grounded as to why I was there and the people I was serving. It was important, those day-to-day encounters in dealing with some of our clients."

He spent eight years at St. John’s, where he had seen the staff grow from eight to 23 and volunteers to about 400.

He took on other assignments — again, grounded in helping those in need including Boys’ and Girls’ Hope of Greater Cincinnati and St. Agnes School in Bond Hill. He then returned to St. Joseph to become evangelization coordinator, which involved parish outreach services. He helped open a hospitality house in the West End for those who wanted to minister in the West End and Over-the-Rhine and needed a place to live, or "a place for respite."

For a quarter-century, he had been a Franciscan Brother. Now he was being called to something else.

"It was a period of discernment," he said. "I was very happy as a Brother. But the Spirit was calling me to prepare. And I asked for some time to discern where the Lord was leading me. My lifestyle was becoming very diocesan, working in a parish. I was looking at my future. I needed to move on. I always worked with the poor as a Brother. That’s what I entered to do. I’m very happy with that. Brothers of the Poor defined who I was."

And for the past six years, he’s been on a path to a further definition.

"It’s been quite an adjustment, leaving the active ministry and going back to an academic program," said Deacon Taylor. "I’m very much in awe. It’s been a very powerful experience for me. It’s been a challenge for me and my spirituality. We’re in the home stretch."