Kevin Hughes, lower right, with fellow seminarians.
There was a time when it seemed like every Irish family sent a boy into the seminary. It was a point of pride within families and within the Irish-American community, which once sent more of its sons into the Catholic priesthood than any other nationality.
That was then. Now, people perhaps are more mystified than proud when a young man they know wants to take that momentous step. Why would anyone commit to such a life?
I’m thinking now of Kevin Hughes, my friend. I first came to know Kevin when he joined the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band. I was a drummer. Kevin was a student at LaSalle and a piper with lungs of steel and fingers that moved in a blur. No one could keep up with him.
When you belong to a competition pipe band, you get to know people pretty well. Competitions usually are not close, so you have to share long rides out to Long Island, Southern Maryland and the like, and back again. (It’s an even longer ride home if you’ve lost.)
That’s how I got to know Kevin. I can still remember him sacking out in the passenger seat of my car on our way back from a competition venue, maybe the Long Island Scottish Games at Old Westbury Gardens. He snored.
It’s been clear for years that Kevin was bound for the priesthood—the Jesuits in particular, thanks to four years of exposure at St. Joe’s Prep. A lot of us probably have a fixed idea of what a young man with his sights set on the priesthood is supposed to be like. You might picture the holy card poster boy, eyes permanently fixed on the heavens. You might not picture the husky dude with lungs of steel, sitting on the Irish Center bar stool next to you, trading wise cracks after band practice.
That’s our Kevin—bright, hugely talented, and, in my estimation, a pretty good match for an order known for intellectual rigor and spiritual integrity.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder, was a knight before he became a priest. Today, I’d like to think he might have been a piper.
We tracked Kevin down by e-mail at the Novitiate of St. Andrew Hall in Syracuse, N.Y. Here’s what he had to say.
Q. How old are you? What was your degree at LaSalle?
A. I am 23 years old and my degree from La Salle University is in biology, Bachelors of Arts. I am the third youngest man in the novitiate.
Q. I want to go back to a question I asked you before: Why? Why the priesthood? Why the Jesuits?
A. Why does anyone fall in love? You just know, it’s like being called to something. That is how I feel, like I am being called by God to something larger than myself. I feel like the Jesuit charism is compatible with my own desires to serve the people of God, specifically to see God in all things and to be a man for others.
Q. I’ll also note that no one asks incredulous-sounding questions when someone says they’re going to med school or law school. I wonder what goes through your head when someone asks that question, as if you’ve just announced that you’re planning to be the first astronaut to walk on the surface of Mercury or you’re hoping to open a chain of cat-waxing facilities.
A. I certainly realize that a lot fewer people, especially young people, are desiring to enter religious life, so I don’t mind at all when people ask me what I am thinking. In fact, I welcome the questions because it gives me a chance to tell people that someone can be happy with a life devoted to the love and service of God and His people.
Another thing I tell people, when they ask about why I have to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, is that I don’t have to take them, I don’t have to be a member of a religious order, no one is forcing me: I could go to med or grad school, but I am choosing to take these vows and to live a life in a religious order to study for the priesthood.
Q. Tell us a bit about your everyday life. How has the reality of the novitiate compared to your expectations?
A. Well, getting up at 5:30 a.m. has taken some getting used to, as well as going to bed around 9:30 p.m.
My day begins with an hour of private prayer, followed by communal Morning Prayer, and then some classes about church and Jesuit history, then about the Gospel. We have Mass every day and communal dinner and night prayer.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at an Apostolate volunteer job from 8:30 to 2:30. I work in Cathedral Emergency Services, a local Syracuse food pantry. IT IS GREAT, I love it. The other novices there are really good guys and they are easy to get along with.
Q. What’s the career path beyond the novitiate? How long before you’re ordained? Tell me again what you hope to do as a Jesuit?
A. The career path beyond the novitiate is still unknown. God willing, after taking vows we are sent to first studies. This can be one of four places: Toronto, St. Louis, Chicago or Manhattan. We really don’t know where we will be sent until right before we go; they like to keep us in suspense.
Again, God willing, I will be ordained after the 11-year program—two years novitiate, three years first studies, three years Regency, three years theology studies.
As a Jesuit I don’t really want to limit myself to any “career” within the Society, but at some point I would certainly like to do some teaching.
Q. Do you think you’ll get the chance to play pipes any time soon? Or is your schedule and your training just that demanding?
A. I do still have a chance to play the pipes, however not nearly as much time as I had before joining. My playing is limited to practicing and occasionally playing the pipes for the guys.
I had the opportunity to go to McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, N.Y., and played my pipes there, while the superior of the Jesuit community did some Irish step dancing. He’s very good, he used to teach Irish Step.
