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I was ordained for the Diocese of Fresno in April of 1973. My first assignment in Los Banos in June, soon to become a heaven and hell assignment. The people were great, but the pastor wasn’t, but the people and the ministry sustained me.

In 1976 I was assigned to St. Mary Parish in Visalia, California. The pastor there understood the difficulties of my previous assignment, and despite my being liberal and he being conservative we developed a good, strong friendship which saw us through my leaving the active ministry, his retirement, his transition to assisted living and skilled nursing until his death. My years at St. Mary's were the best years of my parish ministry as not only were the people there as great as those in Los Banos, but the pastor was a lot of fun and taught me much.

In the summer of 1978 my assignment in Visalia ended with me being sent to Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. to study canon law (not, by far, my first choice). But I made good friends there and had the double fortune of Charlie Franich and his wife, Ruth, living there also. I had officiated at Charlie and Ruth's wedding in Boston in 1974, so not only had we maintained contact and our friendship, but now he was almost next door.

Despite my initial trepidation, the study of canon law and the experience of D.C. opened up new doors for me and by the time I received my JCD degree in 1981, I was sad to leave. I loved the experience of D.C..

After all that, going back to Fresno was a real let down and culture shock. Especially more so, as my beloved Bishop Hugh A. Donohoe had retired the year before I returned to Fresno. My primary assignment for the next eight years was the Tribunal/Chancery Office. Most of the cases were petitions for annulments, but there were some unusual cases as well, such as two parishes fighting over a plum orchard.

There were others as well, but the annulment petitions were overwhelming and it was hard to ignore the suffering and injustice of people who were just trying to do the best they could in living their lives and cling to a faith that sustained them. I was the general convention chairperson for the Canon Law Society of America and sat on the national board of Engaged Encounter for several years. In addition, I landed some opportunities to teach canon law at Mt. Angel Seminary in Oregon [one semester each year for five years running] and Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

I will tell one story about which may provide some clues as to why I finally decided I had to take a leave of absence.

At one point a bishop decided to bring a seminarian deacon into a particular diocese against the advice of his advisors. It didn't take long before one of the (unmarried) Chancery Office secretaries became pregnant by you-know-who. She was immediately "relieved of her duties," was blackballed in the Diocese so that no parish was allowed to hire her, and was informed that the Diocese would graciously keep her on health insurance until the baby was born, but she would have to pay back all the premiums that were expended for her benefit. The deacon, on the other hand, received nothing more than a slap on the wrist and plans continued in full force for his projected ordination date.

I am proud to say that I feel I was able to be a part of that woman receiving some justice. By means of a mutual friend, I provided contact information for someone I knew and respected at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the Apostolic Delegate himself decided to vacation in the particular diocese and, not long after his short vacation, the woman was informed she was not going to have to pay back the health insurance premiums AND she was going to receive child support.

Also, the deacon's ordination date was derailed and he was sent to another was going to receive child support. Also, the deacon's ordination date was derailed and he was sent to another diocese for evaluation, never to return to the diocese. I have no idea of what ever became of him and he may have been ordained later on.

Because I realized I could no longer support the regime, I informed the bishop that I would take a leave of absence effective July 1, 1989. I had been accepted at the law school in Fresno and had made arrangements to work as a law clerk at a firm in Hanford. Law school began sometime in August 1989 and the next four years were a bit of a blur.

Now that I knew the bar exam would be a once in a lifetime experience, I had to decide what to do next. I had interviewed with some firms, but having working in a firm and in the world's largest bureaucracy (via the Fresno Tribunal), I decided to go out on my own. I started slowly, working out of my condo, and within a couple of years was able to move in with a group of attorneys who all practice in different areas of law from me and I'm still in the same office with some of the same attorneys. I do primarily estate planning/probate/conservatorship/guardianship matters.

I love what I do, but would like to slow down a bit. In any event, I think I found my niche. I have, of course, lots of "war stories" but those are for another time, as this narrative is already far longer than I had anticipated.

Not too far into my practice (not more than two years), I realized that I have basically been doing the same thing all of my professional life. As both a priest and as an attorney, you deal with people's secrets. But I look at it as much more than that and explain it as follows: I see my role as a translator/interpreter of the mystery in people's lives.

Whether the mystery is God or the law, people have a sense they need to interact with it for one reason or another, and make sense of it in the practical realities of their lives in order to move forward to a place they want or need to be. I'm there to try to help unravel the mystery in a way that is understandable and makes the path clearer, even if not easier. The language may be different, but they dynamics are the same.

So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.