If you were mapping out the course of Richard Conlin’s life – from professional golfer to accountant – a call to the priesthood wouldn’t seem to be on the horizon.
But before a small gathering of loved ones and hundreds of livestream viewers, Father Richard Conlin was ordained to the priesthood Dec. 11 at Holy Rosary Cathedral.
“As the years of my life went on, there was probably not a single person in the whole world that would believe that I would become a priest,” said Father Conlin during his first Mass Dec. 12.
While playing golf on Canada’s national team or in his “darkest days,” when he could be found partying at a university in California, “there was not a person in the whole university that would ever have thought that I would become a priest.”
But while all others may not have seen a higher calling on his life, Father Conlin said two women in his life had remained hopeful: his mother, and Mary, Mother of God.
“When I was a baby, my mother consecrated me to Mary, and Mary set me apart at that moment to become a priest,” he said Dec. 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
He said celebrating his first Mass as a priest on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was no coincidence.
Thirteen years ago, his mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Upon receiving the difficult news, she went to church to appeal to God and opened her prayer book to a random page. On it was an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with her words to St. Juan Diego: “Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here? Who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything.”
That moment strengthened her faith in a dramatic way. Inspired, she remained hopeful for her son Richard, who described his story as akin to the Prodigal Son. Then one year, as her birthday present, she asked him to go to confession.
He did as asked. After 30 minutes of kneeling, confessing his sins, and hearing that he was forgiven, he felt the darkness of his sins “wiped away.”
Feeling as though his heart was “on fire,” he was inspired to go to Mass at his family’s parish, St. Joseph the Worker in Richmond, and receive Communion. So began a life-changing journey toward the priesthood.
“Our Lady of Guadalupe, the words that she spoke, were so profound to my mother that she became the instrument for our mother Mary to bring me hope,” he said.
After finding he desired to spend time in an adoration chapel more than going to work at KPMG or spending time with his girlfriend, he entered the seminary. He was ordained a transitional deacon in Dec. 2019 and served at Christ the Redeemer and Corpus Christi parishes.
Now as an assistant pastor at Corpus Christi, he serves alongside pastor Father Bruce-John Hamilton, co-incidentally also a former sportsman: his basketball team from the University of Victoria, the Vikings, was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame this year.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller called Father Conlin’s priestly ordination a “great blessing to the archdiocese.”
“Ordination is a precious gift of God to his Church and of the priest to his Lord,” he said. “Richard, live your priestly life as a gift, a gift to be given back to the Lord and to his people, for whom you are to be a shepherd.”
He also urged him in “every circumstance” to look toward Our Lady of Guadalupe, a major player in his vocation story thus far.
“She is the mother of your priesthood,” he said. “As she said to the servants of the wedding of Cana, Mary repeats to you as her priest: ‘Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you.’”
Speaking before few people (including his mother) at Holy Rosary Cathedral and more than 700 livestream viewers, Father Conlin called his ordination the beginning of his life as a “father.”
“I look forward to being with my sons and daughters and sharing this great gift that I’ve been given from Jesus. I ask you to pray for me, that I may live out this vocation as a father to so many people out there that need a message of hope, a message of the goodness of God during these times,” he said.
“I look forward to being your ‘father’ for many years to come.”
The video of his ordination has so far been viewed 3,400 times on YouTube; 2,300 were unique viewers, far surpassing the maximum seating capacity of 700 at Holy Rosary Cathedral.