When Father John Leo Phalen was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, he wanted to be either a priest doing missionary work in the jungle or a “Bring’Em Back Alive Frank Buck-type,” who’s adventures capturing wild jungle animals were made famous in books, movies and film shorts.
“I always wanted something adventurous in life,” Phalen said.
Fortunately, for St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lake Orion and its parishioners, Phalen didn’t choose jungle life, but instead became their pastor in 1990.
The decision was fortunate for Phalen as well.
“I hate snakes,” he said, admitting that a trip he took through South America made him realize he “would not have been a good missionary in the jungle.”
Phalen’s adventure leading the local church is coming to end in June as he recently announced he will retire then from his duties as pastor and move out of the rectory.
“I’ll still be functioning as a priest, I just won’t have the administrative tasks (associated with running a church) to take care of,” he said. “Some priests I know who are retired pastors told me, ‘Then you can do real priestly work again like visit the hospitals, say Mass and prepare your sermons carefully.'”
Phalen will spend his summers living with a fellow priest at Sacred Heart in Auburn Hills and his winters working on his golf game near his brother and sister-in-law in Lakeland, Florida.
“I’ll still be helping out at parishes where ever I am, saying Mass and such,” he said.
When asked why he decided to retire, Phalen, who was ordained in 1959 and served as pastor at three churches since 1972, said, “I’m 72 and I have three brothers younger than I am and they’re all retired and wondering why I’m not with them more.”
“It’s time to go,” he said. “I have a lot of things I want to do. I have literally thousands of family pictures that have no names on them and I maybe the only one alive who knows most of them. I have to get them identified, organized and put them in the family tree.”
Phalen also wants to travel and visit some family members he hasn’t seen in years and some he’s never met but located while researching his family.
Administering a parish with 3,000 registered families that’s growing at a rate of 300 new families a year takes a lot of time and work, which Phalen said simply wouldn’t allow him to do these things.
“I could have retired two years ago, but I stayed on for the sake of the parish,” he said. “I figured if I didn’t retire this year, it would have to be next year or the year after. Why wait? I figured it was a good time now. I still have a lot of strength and a lot of energy.”
Phalen said one of his fellow priests told him, “You’re too well to retire. You look like you’re 50.”
“I’m 72. I’ve got a birth certificate to prove it,” he said.
The other reason Phalen decided to retire is the current status of the church and parochial school.
“The parish is quite settled now in its facilities, in its people and in its staff,” he said. “We’ve gotten over some humps. Things are in pretty good shape. We got an awful lot done in 13 years.”
However, when Phalen was assigned as pastor, at the request of Cardinal Edmund Szoka, in 1990 things weren’t going so well for St. Joseph.
“In the 1970s and 1980s, nothing was really done (at the church),” he said. “There was a great change after Vatican II and the church fell upon tough times.”
“The people loved St. Joseph’s and had been very proud of it, but they’d lost some of their sense of pride in it because of difficulties. Things just weren’t together,” Phalen said.
One the main problems facing the church back then was overcrowding.
“The church needed more space. It was packed,” he said. “The first word I got when I came here was they were going to destroy the church and build a new one here. I said while I’m here no one will destroy this church.”
Phalen then began listening to and speaking with the parishioners about the parish’s needs and jotting down their ideas in an effort to enlarge the church “so it doesn’t lose its uniqueness.”
In 1993, the parish came up with a plan of what needed to be done including enlarging the church, building a new gymnasium, gathering space, meeting rooms, offices, corridor connecting the church and school, and doubling the size of the school and refurbishing it.
“We got it all done. I didn’t think we’d ever get this school finished off, but we did,” Phalen said confessing the only thing he’s not proud of is the $5 million debt the parish incurred as a result of all the new construction. ” It cost us some debt, but we got all the buildings we need now. I feel guilty about leaving such a large debt, but I can’t get everything done.”
While the new construction certainly helped breath new life into St. Joseph, Phalen also helped recover some of the church’s past which further aided the parish’s renaissance.
“We got the old-timers to tell us their stories about the church and we wrote them down,” he said. “We discovered some wonderful old traditions here and a rich history that helped bring the parish together.”
But ultimately it was people, not bricks and mortar or stories, that made the real difference and helped the parish turn the corner.
“I’ve actually been able to see a difference (with the people) and felt that the Lord put me here to make some significant changes that have been for the better,” he said. “I’ve really been able to affect the life of the parish. I’ve seen the people grow.”
“I thought I was here because the Lord wanted me here and folks certainly cooperated. They’re the ones who made the difference here.”
“I can feel the closeness of a lot of the people at Mass. I have a real bond with the people here. We’ve got real unity. We’re bound together and doing something extremely good,” Phalen added.
The parish isn’t the only thing that’s changed over the years.
“The life of the parish has affected me too,” Phalen said. “I’ve grown by leaps and bounds here in many ways. I’ve had to pray a lot more. When you don’t know what to do, you turn to somebody and the Lord is usually better than anyone else.”
“I’ve learned what to do and what to let go,” he said. “We’ve developed a wonderful staff here. I’ve learned to stand back and let others do tasks. To help by encouraging them, but not interfering. Those of us in my job tend to do too much sometimes. I tend to overdo it sometimes.”
Phalen is also proud of his involvement with the Oxford-Orion Ministerial Association which includes a number of area churches of various Christian denominations.
“If we’ve got the Lord on our side, we’re supposed to be working together to let it show, no matter what kind of clothes or traditions we bring with us,” he said. “If we’re the real disciples of the Lord, then we should do stuff together.”
Phalen said his work as a priest and pastor has always been guided by something his father used to say, “Our churches ought to be the friendliest places in town.”
Phalen’s parents ran the Shamrock Inn, once a local tavern in the Irish Hills, for a number of years after coming to Michigan in 1944 from Grand Forks, North Dakota. “I spent the 1940s going to (Onsted) high school and being in an Irish tavern. Good preparation for being a priest,” he said laughing.
In the end, Phalen said he got the adventurous life he yearned for as a youth.
“Being a priest is an exciting life if you don’t get stuck down in routines,” he said. “I got what I was looking for and then some.”
He said facing the challenges of helping St. Joseph Church recover its former glory and once again flourish in the community is a “great success story.”
We’re sure the grateful and happy parishioners of St. Joseph would agree.