Packer Priest is Converted
That’s right, I am part owner of the Green Bay Packers. Well, it is just one share, but hey!
In 1996, I was a Parochial Vicar in Janesville, WI (home and parish of Speaker Paul Ryan). The Packers and Brett Favre were making everyone a Packer fan that year. Right from the beginning of the football season, after the Final Blessing, I would incite the congregation to root, “Go Packers!”
That year, I was away from the parish 3 weekends. It just so happened that those were the only 3 Green Bay losses. After the third time that happened, folks were half-joking that I was not allowed to leave anymore. It got so crazy that somebody contacted the press. Before I knew it, there were 3 TV Networks in my choir loft filming the end of Mass, and our cheer, for the last game of the season. I became known as “The Packer Priest.” And, the Packers won the Super Bowl that year.
This was two years prior to my awakening to the need for more reverent liturgies. That came at my first papal Mass with Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I was never the same after that. I’m not inciting congregations in church any longer. But, we have awesome Packer parties later that day!
Here’s what is kinda spooky … if you look at the date on this stock certificate (pictured in this post), that is the very day I had my conversion … February 2, 1998, The Mass for the Feast of the Presentation at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with Pope John Paul II. WOW!!
