March 5, 2010

Father Prentice Dean’s ordination is ‘all graces’

Andy Telli, Tennessee Register

Teresa Dean sat in the front pew of the Cathedral of the Incarnation watching as her husband, Prentice Dean, was lying prostrate at the feet of Bishop David Choby and the church full of family, friends and supporters sang the Litany of Saints, praying for their intercession.

“The last saint they prayed to was my patron saint, St. Teresa of Avila, and it was like she was there,” said Teresa Dean, who witnessed her husband become the first married, former Episcopal priest ordained as a Catholic priest for the Diocese of Nashville under the Pastoral Provision.

“I was amazed at the numbers of people who showed up,” Father Dean said, noting the relatives and many old friends who attended his ordination on Feb. 22, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.

“It was at the beginning when I really got a sense of the number of people who had showed up and when I got to the place where I had to stand in the sanctuary and looked out,” Father Dean said. “I got a little choked up and thought that was too early to start blubbering.”

Those who attended included his 80-year-old father from North Carolina, his twin brother from upstate New York, his twin daughters, one who lives in Annapolis, Md., and the other in Houston, Texas. “We’re pretty far flung so it was a good chance to get together, if briefly,” Father Dean said.

Also on hand were friends from the Episcopal church where he served as rector before his conversion to Catholicism, an Episcopal priest and former classmate in the seminary, and Jim Anderson, assistant director of the Coming Home Network International, an organization that provides support to former Protestant ministers who have converted to Catholicism.

Many parishioners at the Church of the Assumption in Nashville, where Father Dean served as a transitional deacon before his ordination and will continue to serve as a priest, also helped fill the pews of the Cathedral.

“It really was incredibly heartwarming to have so many people show up,” Father Dean said. “It was wonderful to see all the priests who were able to come out.”

Father Dean called his ordination “all graces,” and Bishop Choby said it “points to the effort of the Church to respond as generously as possible to those who are seeking full communion with the Church.”

In 1980, Pope John Paul II created the Pastoral Provision as a response to requests from Episcopal priests and laypeople in the United States who wished to convert to Catholicism. The Provision allowed for married Episcopal priests to be ordained as Catholic priests after their conversion so they could continue to serve their flocks who joined the Catholic Church with them. In the years since, the Provision has been applied primarily for individual priests rather than whole congregations, and more than 90 men across the country have been ordained under the Provision.

Although the Provision allows for married men to be ordained as priests, if they are widowed after ordination they are not permitted to remarry.

Call of conversion

Father Dean was a lifelong Episcopalian, and active in his church when he was ordained an Episcopal priest in 2004 and accepted a call to be the rector at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Manchester, Tenn.

At the time, the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church in the United States is a part, was roiled in controversy. And ultimately, it was the Catholic belief in the teaching authority of the pope and the magisterium that led Father Dean away from the Episcopal Church and to the Catholic Church.

He resigned as rector of St. Bede’s in September 2005 and about a month later joined the Catholic Church. In May 2006, Bishop Choby hired Father Dean as vice chancellor for the diocese and facility manager for the Catholic Center in Nashville. The two began exploring the possibility of his being ordained under the Pastoral Provision.

In the fall of that year, he filed a formal request with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome and began studying scripture, dogmatics, spiritual theology, moral theology, church history, liturgy and canon law through the faculty at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University. The more than two years of studies concluded with two days of written and oral tests.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued permission for Father Dean’s ordination last spring.

“In the most recent documents coming from the Vatican that relate to Anglican converts, the Holy Father is very clear in stating that as the universal (leader) of the Church, he feels a heavy awareness that his role is one in which to promote the cause of unity between churches,” Bishop Choby said. “The ordination of Prentice Dean is an expression of the Church’s desire to promote that unity. …

“We often pray for church unity and what we are witnessing with respect to the numbers of former members of the Anglican/Episcopal Church who seek full communion with the Catholic Church, what we’re witnessing is the way that unity is being built up, bit by bit,” Bishop Choby said.

“I am now in concert every time I do the Mass with the countless number of priests throughout the world that say the true sacrifice of the Mass day in an day out, year in and year out,” Father Dean said. “To me it’s an incredible chance for me to participate in this communion of all the saints who have gone before us, who live among us.”

First Mass

Father Dean celebrated his Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday, Feb. 28, at Assumption.

The gospel reading for the day was the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, Father Dean noted. “It seems almost serendipitous that I get to say the first Mass on the day in the calendar when we have Jesus transfigured,” he said. “I think I will be able to talk about the meaning of the Transfiguration as the word of God for the day and at the same time weave in my gratitude to the Catholic Church and to the bishop and to the Assumption itself for their support.”

Dr. Rachel Kaiser and her husband Brad were among the many Assumption parishioners who attended Father Dean’s ordination.

“Since he’s been deacon there, he’s made a lot of friends there and he’s extremely well liked and respected,” Dr. Kaiser said.

“He’s a wonderful homilist,” Brad Kaiser said. “He’ll be a wonderful asset to the diocese.”

Like Father Dean, Dr. Kaiser was an Episcopalian before she converted to Catholicism 13 years ago. “I kind of know what he went through,” she said.

The fact that Father Dean is married has not been a concern for Assumption parishioners, Dr. Kaiser said. “I don’t think it bothers anyone because his wife is so well liked and respected.”

Teresa Dean said she is not worried about how her husband’s ordination and life as a Catholic priest will affect her. “I feel God always prepares you because he knows the future, you don’t. If you’re cooperating with his grace you are prepared for the future,” she said.

She has become friends with Assumption parishioners who are mothers of priests and seminarians and has learned from them, Mrs. Dean said. “All these people have been put in my life for a reason.”

First assignment

For his first assignment as a priest, Father Dean will continue in the roles he held at the time of his ordination: serving as vice chancellor of the diocese and facilities manager at the Catholic Center, as well as assisting as needed at Assumption. He also will be celebrating some of Masses at the Motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia as the congregation seeks a new chaplain, Father Dean said.

Father Dean would like to use his conversion experience to help others. “By the very fact that I am a convert from a mainline denomination, it’s natural that I would be open and available for apologetics, to be able to reach out to people, to be able to reach out and explain the fullness of the Catholic faith,” he said.

He and his wife have both been involved in respect for life activities, which he called one area where there is good cooperation among a broad spectrum of Protestants and Catholics. “If I could help in that ministry in some way, I would look forward to that.”

He also would like to help Catholics who have left the Church to find their way back.

His own life, Father Dean said, is a testament to the fact that through prayer there is always an opportunity to change our hearts and turn to Christ when in need. “I did the same five years ago and the ability for turning one’s life around, in whatever station of life we’re called, is always possible through Christ.”

Deacon Jayd Neely is the next man scheduled to be ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Nashville. His ordination is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, June 11, at the Cathedral.

Photos by Rick Musacchio

Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia sing during the entrance procession of Father Prentice Dean’s ordination to the priesthood at the Cathedral of the Incarnation on Feb. 22.

Father Prentice Dean’s family sings as he is ordained into the priesthood by Bishop David Choby at the Cathedral. Father Dean was the first married former Episcopal priest ordained in the diocese under a special pastoral provision.

Bishop Choby and Father Prentice Dean embrace at the conclusion of the ordination rite. 

Teresa Dean hugs a well wisher after her husband, Prentice Dean, was ordained.

Father Jim Guill, an Episcopal priest in Nashville and a friend of Father Prentice Dean, greets him after Father Dean was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop David Choby at the Cathedral of the Incarnation.