Former broadcaster joins priesthood > Challenge of corporate world placed man at odds with morals

BANGOR — A few short years ago, Fred Morse was a sales director, but times change, and today he has earned the right to be called Father by people of all ages.

He has moved into a second career — the calling of the priesthood.

Morse, 42, grew up in the parish of St. John’s Catholic Church, where he was ordained last Saturday. One of seven children born to Nathan and Katherine Morse, he attended St. John’s School and graduated from John Bapst High School when it was still run by the Catholic Church.

Morse had a lot of fun at Bapst, where he joined the glee club, basketball team, Key Club and Catholic Youth Organization, and was a manager for the football team. From Bapst, he went on to the University of Maine and studied psychology.

The priest’s first career was in the business end of broadcasting, first at WABI in Bangor, where he had “a great time”; then to WGME in Portland, and finally to a CBS affiliate in Rochester, N.Y.

The turning point proved to be New York, which provided Morse with more exposure to “the dog-eat-dog world” than he really wanted.

“I decided that the challenge of the corporate world of broadcasting could put me at odds with my own morals on a regular basis,” he said. Then, too, living so far from family and friends gave him time for reflection on what he really wanted to do with the rest of his life.

“I thought, `Who do I know that is really happy?”‘ Morse recalled recently. Some of those people, he realized, were priests.

Looking back, Morse believes that the priesthood was always a possibility, at least after Vatican II and the translation of the Mass from Latin to the local language.

In the ’60s and early ’70s, Morse never went through the period of questioning his faith that was characteristic of many young Catholics of the time. “I always was able to stay in touch with the church. I really enjoyed going to Mass,” he said.

Moreover, priests had always been a part of his life, and not just on Sundays. His family had known many priests where they first lived on Little Cranberry Isle. Morse also counts among his friends a diverse group of priests.

They include the Very Rev. Richard Harvey, a traditionalist who just retired from St. Joseph’s in Brewer and who was a priest at St. John’s during Morse’s altar-server days; the Rev. Frank Murray from St. Mary’s, a friend since childhood; the Rev. Jim Gower, Pax Christi leader and pastor whose preaching has always moved him; and the Rev. Paul Coughlin, pastor of the Wells parish where Morse did much of his deacon ministry.

The Diocese of Portland steers many of its seminarians to Catholic University in Washington, D.C., but Morse found himself drawn to Pope John XXIII Seminary in Weston, Mass., where he was actually one of the younger students.

He was comfortable with other older students who had a good measure of life experience and a variety of backgrounds: a book editor, a retired surgeon, an architect, a man from the automobile business.

New priests like Morse and these men will go into parishes “with none of the anxiety of the administrative challenges,” because they have already faced them. Therefore, Morse said, “they can concentrate more of their energy in the spiritual dimension.”

“You can see the spirituality coming through on the job,” he said. “Putting it in God’s hands doesn’t mean you’re irresponsible.”

Morse put himself in God’s hands and pledged his life to the priesthood last Saturday morning before hundreds of family members and friends at St. John’s. Several priests came from throughout the state to concelebrate the Mass, and also to watch Bishop Joseph J. Gerry anoint Morse with holy chrism, the oil that is a symbol of Christ.

Both priests and congregation sang the litany of the saints, asking them to intercede on Morse’s behalf before God. During the litany, Morse lay face down on the marble floor, a sign of his obedience.

The bishop pointed out that the ordinand had chosen readings indicating his desire “to always be mindful of the sacred task that is his.” Discipleship, Gerry said, “means surrendering one’s own will to Jesus and letting him take the lead.”

Morse’s first assignment will be as associate pastor to the Rev. Jean Paul Labrie at St. Louis Church in Fort Kent, a parish where Morse spent a summer while in the seminary.

Just days before his ordination, Morse had pointed out with a chuckle that his inability to learn Latin now would be replaced by the challenge of living in a French-speaking culture. Fortunately, the people in the St. John Valley “are very understanding,” Morse has found.

Language aside, Morse and the Franco-Americans have something in common besides their Catholic faith — ancestors who immigrated to the United States in the 19th century. Morse’s grandmother, Mary Smyth Morse, came to Maine as a young girl before the turn of the century from Waterford, Ireland, and always had to do something special on St. Patrick’s Day, the new priest recalled. When he was 10, it was the day his grandmother went home to God.

A holy card engraved in green was distributed to those attending Morse’s ordination, printed with a prayer to St. Patrick:

You were an evangelical saint who came to love a people foreign to you with all your heart. Never once did you claim your ways were superior to theirs or try to impose your will on others. I ask that you give me your ability to act toward others with sensitivity and care.

Help me to discern and share the emotions, thoughts and feelings of my family and friends, of strangers and adversaries, so that I can act toward them in a loving way. I ask that the wisdom you gained in reaching out to strangers with humility and love become the essence of my spiritual life.