Earlier this summer, Fr. Lawrence O’Keefe celebrated his 55th ordination anniversary as a priest of the Diocese of Gallup. His numerous assignments in the diocese include St. Michaels School, St. Joseph in Winslow, St. John Vianney in Gallup, St. Francis in Gallup, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Holbrook, Judicial Vicar for the Tribunal Office, and rector at the Cathedral. Although he is now retired, Fr. O’Keefe still maintains a residence and presence at his beloved parish in Holbrook, where he still celebrates the sacraments.
Fr. O’Keefe spoke with the Voice of the Southwest for a look back on his life as a priest.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk a bit about your early life? Where did you grow up?
I was born in New York City and lived there until I was nine. And then my dad moved us to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is where my growing-up place really is. I’ve had Catholic schooling all my life from kindergarten through graduate school. I went to a Jesuit high school in Portland, Maine, and then I went to Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was while I was at Holy Cross that I felt that God was calling me to the priesthood. And then, my senior year of college, I was getting very antsy because I had to make a decision to get into the seminary, and I didn’t know where I wanted to go or what kind of a priest I wanted to be.
I ended up coming out here to do a year of volunteer teaching at St. Michaels [School], which is what got me interested in this part of the country. And it was while I was here for that year that I decided, well, eventually, I wanna be a priest in the Diocese of Gallup.
But I still wasn’t ready to go to the seminary. And the reason I wasn’t ready to go into the seminary was I have this annoying feeling that somehow I was a “hothouse” Catholic: that I’d had Catholic education all my life, and the only reason I was Catholic was I didn’t know anything else. So I went back home to New Hampshire, and I had a job lined up with Holy Cross, which really didn’t excite me at all because it was right back at a Catholic institution.
So one day, I’m walking on the campus of the University of New Hampshire, and I met a professor that I had had the previous summer for some education courses. And he had just been appointed superintendent of schools in a little place called Yellow Springs, Ohio, which I had never heard of. And he said, “you know, we need a social studies teacher in my high school. Would you be interested in something like that?” And I said yes. Right away, without even thinking about it.
Well, turns out Yellow Springs was exactly what I needed at that point in my life because Yellow Springs, first of all, was a college town. And the college was Antioch College, which is a first-rate small liberal arts college and originally started off as Protestant, but had long since lost its religious identity. And Yellow Springs was also the home of the American Humanist Association, which was very intellectual and very, very atheistic, and they were dedicated to the goal of ridding American society of the scourge of organized religion.
So I found myself in a situation exactly the opposite of anything I had known before, and I loved it. I loved it. But it never really made me question my faith. And I would engage for the first time in my life. My friends were not only not Catholic, they weren’t even Christian. They were atheists. So, what does a 22-year-old kid end up doing, but getting into all night bull sessions?
And after a while, I began to realize that for some reason, the subject of my Catholicism always seemed to be on the table for discussion and not in any way where they were trying to understand, but in a real putdown way. Like, “how can anybody intelligent and well educated be of all things a Roman Catholic? That stuff should have died out in the Middle Ages.”
And I said, “Okay. That’s your opinion.”
And then they my favorite one they’d say was, “If you have to be a believer, why don’t you be something respectable, like a Unitarian?” So then I started realizing, you know, why are you so hung up about my Catholicism? I’m not hung up about your atheism. I don’t feel the need to shove rosary beads down your throat, or to drown you in holy water.
That was the first step. The second step was: if I am as well educated in all these other wonderful things as you say I am, I’m a product of Catholic education all the way through. I have been formed and trained by the Catholic Church. And frankly, I think I’m a little bit more broad-minded than you guys are. And that’s when I realized I’m not a hothouse Catholic. I’m a Catholic by conviction. And that that my religion is not meant to be used as a sledgehammer, to bang everybody over the head who doesn’t agree with me, but it’s really meant to be a source of strength for me to do what God wants me to do in my life. And it was at that point that I was ready to go into seminary.
So I look back on this stuff now, and I could see God guiding me every step of the way. The proof in the pudding is, I’ve been a priest in the Diocese of Gallup now for fifty-five years. And I ain’t going as strong as I used to, but I’m still going strong, for an old guy.
When I decide to commit, I came back to Gallup and went over to see the bishop, and this was the first bishop of the diocese, Bishop Espelage.
I was incarnated under +Espelage, was ordained by +Hastrich. Then, under +Pelotte I was the Judicial Vicar and then later on, rector of the Cathedral. And under Bishop Wall, I got my retirement. I think I’m the last priest in the diocese whose life has been touched by all four bishops.
Do you still keep in touch with any of those friends from your teaching days?
I have, but most of them are dead now.
When I went back, I went back for two anniversaries. I went back for the 25th anniversary, and then I went back for the 50th anniversary of the graduating classes. Two of my atheist friends both had PhDs. And when they found out I was gonna go to the seminary, they came over to my apartment, tears in their eyes. They said, “Larry, you’re throwing your life away”. And [the husband] says to me, “if you will just postpone this decision, I can get you a Peace Corps scholarship to any university in Latin America, and the government will pay you to get a doctorate.” And I said, “if you would make me the offer six months earlier, I really would have been tempted.”
You know, I often tell people the easiest decision I ever made in my life was to be a priest. The hardest decision I ever made in my life was what kind of a priest to be, and where was God calling me.
How did you originally hear about St. Michael School and the Gallup Diocese?
As I said, in my senior year of high school, I was putting more and more pressure on myself that I had to make a decision.
So one day, I went in to see my spiritual director who was a Jesuit, and I’m talking to him and telling him my problems and my uncertainties and stuff. And he says to me, “Larry, it’s not absolutely necessary that you get on the bus for the seminary as soon as you get your diploma in hand. Why don’t you think about taking some time off and letting God lead you where he wants to to place you”. That didn’t excite me at all because I wanted him to give me the answer. That didn’t sound much like an answer to me.
That night, there was a horrendous snowstorm. This is in Worcester, Massachusetts, which knows how to get horrendous snowstorms. And I’m living at one end of the campus. This guy is at the other end of the campus. So at about 11:00 at night, he calls me up, gets me out of bed, and says, “Larry, after you left this afternoon, something came across my desk that might be just what you’re looking for. And I’m so excited about it. I want you to get dressed and come over to my room so I can talk to you about it.”
I had to dress and slog through the snow, which was up over my knees, I think. I get up to his room. He produces a letter from the principal of St. Michael Indian School in Arizona, and they’re looking for a high school boys’ adviser and a supervisor for the boys’ dorm. So that’s what brought me out there.
Some of the most important decisions I’ve made in my life have been just totally fluky things. But it was made after a long, long process of reflection and stewing around and going back and forth and all this other stuff. And then all of a sudden, when God wanted me to have the answer, it came just like that, and I knew it.
So I started off in Winslow, and then from Winslow, I went to Gallup. And I was one of the founding priests for Saint John Vianney [Parish]. Then I was transferred to Saint John’s as pastor. I was there for about six years, then back to Winslow, this time as pastor. And I was there for three years. And then I went to Rome. I was in Rome for [nearly] four years.
When Bishop Pelotte took over from Bishop Hastrich, he wanted to make me the Judicial Vicar, which I was expecting since I had the doctorate in Canon Law. So I was in Gallup for about two years, I think, and lived in St. Francis Parish in Gallup. I think I’m the only priest in the diocese that’s ever lived in all three parishes in the city of Gallup.
And then, one day, the bishop sticks his head in my office, and he said, “well, it looks like we’re gonna have to get something new in Holbrook.”
And I said, “Hey, I’ll have my bags packed tomorrow.”
This time, I was there for nine and a half years. It was then that we put in the family center. And that was one of my one of my proudest achievements. It’s a beautiful facility.
Then when I came to the Cathedral, the single greatest thing that I’m most proud of was the way we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Cathedral. I wanted to celebrate it in a meaningful way.
Going back over the history of the Cathedral, when it was built, it was not built with Gallup money at all because Gallup didn’t have any money. It was people of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles who provided Bishop Espelage with the money.
So I get the bright idea that we’re going to take a thousand dollars a week and donate it in turn to every parish in the diocese. And because the Cathedral is the mother church of the diocese, we want to show our solicitude and our concern for the other places in in the diocese.
Every week, we had a representative from one of the parishes in the diocese who would come. They’d give a five minute presentation about their parish, and I would give them a check for a thousand dollars.
We did that for a year. And at the end of it, we had this beautiful, beautiful celebration which every parish in the diocese attended. And the bishops from the region were there.
So that was probably the thing that I’m the most proud of because it was a unique and beautiful way to celebrate 50 years. Not by putting up a plaque or, you know, some statue or something, but by sharing – since God had blessed the Cathedral so much in the intervening years – sharing that with the other parishes in the diocese.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in over 50 years as a priest?
I learned the beauty of the Diocese of Gallup. [It’s] is a fifth-rate diocese at best. But in terms of the depth of the faith, in terms of being priest out here, you know, you don’t hide behind a battery of secretaries and ministers and deacons and everything else. The doorbell rings and you answer. The little old lady wants to buy a candle. You sell it to her. You live very close to your people.
I have probably forgotten more theology than [many] people will ever learn. But if I end up with one tenth of the faith that they have, I’m gonna end up being a good priest.
The second lesson was if I die as a priest – because in those days, you know, the year I was ordained, more guys left the ministry than were ordained for it. And nobody was more aware of that fact than those those of us who are being ordained.
But I realized if I ever died as a priest, it would be because of the faith of the people.
One thing I cannot abide is any priest who uses people for their own ends, who manipulates people for personal reasons. That just drives me absolutely up the walls. People are so generous anyway. They are so good anyway.
It’s been a good retirement and a good priesthood. The motto of my retirement is “God takes care of saints and fools.”
I’ve had a very good life. I’m very happy with it.