A call to a new fatherhood

Family has always been a high priority for one St. Petersburg man; now life's changes have led him to a priestly vocation, combining fatherhood with God.

By COLETTE BANCROFT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 16, 2002

[Times photo: Kevin German] Chuck Ratcliffe, a father of four and a widower, is about to begin training to become a Roman Catholic priest. The St. Petersburg man thinks he’ll bring a level of maturity to his new role.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Father's Day finds many dads making plans: plans for brunch, plans to play golf, plans for their children's futures.

Chuck Ratcliffe of St. Petersburg, father of four and grandfather of two, is planning to become a Roman Catholic priest.

It wasn't always his plan. He and his wife, Janet, were married for 29 years. They adopted four children and raised them together. "We had an absolutely fantastic marriage," he says.

"I expected to be sitting on the beach holding hands with her when I was 90."

Last July, at 56, Janet Ratcliffe died of a stroke. She had suffered several "ministrokes," or transient ischemic attacks, before that and had a family history of stroke, so it "wasn't a total surprise," Ratcliffe says.

But it was the painfully unexpected end to a chapter in his life.

For answers about the next chapter, Ratcliffe turned to the community he and his family had long depended on: the Catholic Church. The family has lived in St. Petersburg since 1985 and attended St. Raphael's Church.

For eight years, Ratcliffe and his wife had been involved in the Marian Servants of Divine Providence, a charismatic Catholic lay community in Clearwater. "We always put God at the center of our lives," he says. Divine Providence, with its emphasis on service and active retreat ministry, was "another way of learning."

Some time after his wife's death, he says, "I felt a prompting to consider becoming a priest. I spent a lot of time praying." He consulted with his spiritual adviser at Divine Providence, Ron Novotny, as well as with other community members and several priests.

"I took a private retreat to discern on it," he says, and in March he made the decision: He wanted to study for the priesthood.

Once he felt his vocation was clear, he submitted to an intensive series of interviews and background checks, first with the Diocese of St. Petersburg, which had to agree to sponsor his training as a diocesan priest, and then with the seminary.

He made his decision even as the church grappled with a crisis of confidence created by the flood of disclosures of sexual misconduct by priests. That crisis has not changed his mind, Ratcliffe says. "If we keep our focus on Jesus and on the foundations of the church," Catholicism can weather the storm, he says.

Indeed, he thinks people like him can help. "I think I can bring a maturity" from his life experiences to the priesthood, he says.

Ratcliffe says his children "think it's neat" that he will be studying for the priesthood. All of them -- Brian, 31, Alex, 29, Ann, 27, and Don, 25 -- have been "fully supportive. It doesn't surprise them much, really.

"Of course, it makes a difference that they're all grown up and on their own," Ratcliffe says. He couldn't enter the seminary if he were still raising children.

His youngest son, Don Ratcliffe, who lives in Largo, agrees his father's decision wasn't a shock. "Two things have always been most important to my father, his faith in God and his family.

"I support him in everything he's doing. I think it's great."

Don Ratcliffe says he'll miss having his father nearby, but he's enthusiastic about the qualities his dad will bring to the priesthood. "He's a man who follows through. He's a man of integrity, of honor."

He also says his father is a role model for his own marriage. "He had 30 great years with my mom. They raised four great kids. We never saw them fight. I hope to have the kind of marriage my parents had. I gained a lot of strength from that."

He and his wife, Dorna, have been married three years and have a son, Seth, 2. Don says his parents have been close to his wife, who was born in Iran and raised in the United States. "She wasn't religious, but my mother had a very big influence on her," he says, so much so that she is studying to convert to Catholicism. "When my mom passed away, my dad took over. Now he's her sponsor."

His father can use the strengths he learned as a family man when he becomes a priest, Don Ratcliffe says. "If he can influence other people the way he influenced me and my brothers and sister, it will make the community better. He has a positive effect on everybody he meets."

Chuck Ratcliffe, a fit and soft-spoken man of 56, grew up in Pennsylvania with a strong religious background and attended Catholic schools "all the way through" from grade school to college, earning a degree in social work from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. He briefly considered entering the priesthood while a senior in high school, "but it wasn't for me at that time."

After a hitch in the Marines, he went to work for a transportation company. He is a branch manager at Yellow Transportation, a trucking and transport company where he has worked for 18 years. In July, he will leave his job. In August, he'll begin a four-year course of study at Blessed John the 23rd Seminary in Weston, Mass., near Boston.

The seminary, which has about 70 students, specializes in what its Web site calls "second-career vocation" students, ranging in age from 30 to 60. It has ordained more than 400 priests since its foundation in 1964 as the first seminary in North America for the education of men entering the priesthood later in life.

The Rev. John Moriarty, the seminary's spiritual director, says Blessed John the 23rd (named for the pope who led the church from 1958 to 1963 and convened the Second Vatican Council) was founded by Richard Cardinal Cushing specifically to serve that group. "He felt that a traditional seminary with younger students, with the academic emphasis of the courses, might be more than they wanted or needed," he says.

Many of the seminary's students are widowers like Ratcliffe, Moriarty says, while some have never married. They come from all over the United States. The seminarians have included doctors, lawyers, business owners and teachers, he says. "The level of education and achievement is very high."

And a high percentage of them complete the courses and are ordained. Because the men are older than typical seminary students, they're often more sure of their goals. "They've made a decision, and they're very focused," Moriarty says. Ten priests were ordained this year; about 20 are on track for next year. One recent graduate was ordained at 70, though that, says Moriarty, was a special case.

At the seminary, Ratcliffe will live on campus (students have private rooms rather than shared dorm rooms) and take such classes as church history, theological anthropology and ministry, personality and culture as well as do pastoral work one day a week.

After he is ordained, Ratcliffe will return to the Diocese of St. Petersburg for service. "My goal is to be a good diocesan priest," he says.

Ratcliffe says he doesn't expect much to change in his relationships with his kids and his two grandsons, Seth, and Gabriel, 7 months. "Obviously, I'll miss them," he says, "but it's like college -- I'll have holidays off, summer vacations to visit." And after four years he'll be back in the neighborhood.

Don and another of his sons live in Pinellas County, and the third is planning to move back. His daughter is currently studying in Italy with the Cenacle, a three-year program for young people associated with Our Lady of Divine Providence School of Spirituality, part of the Clearwater community.

"When I was married and raising my family, that was the most important thing in my life," Ratcliffe says. Because of that experience, "I have the potential to bring a lot more to being a priest, having been in business, been a father, been a husband."

He doesn't see his new vocation as a radical change in his life, which has always been, he says, "just a vocation to grow closer to God. That's the type of life both my wife and I always believed in, the most important thing about being a husband and father.

"This is just a change in direction," he says. "I'm really looking forward to it."

Don Ratcliffe will be cheering him on: "I love my dad, and I'm really proud of him."

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