Discussing faith and vocations with Fr Chris Garrett

Currently based in the parish of Castlerea, Co. Roscommon and recently appointed as administrator of Sligo Cathedral parish by Bishop Kevin Doran, Fr Chris Garrett was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Elphin in May 2023 in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Sligo, by Bishop Kevin Doran. His mother was Irish, and his father was American. He spent his childhood years in Texas followed by his teenage years and early adult years in Dublin. During this time he studied medicine in UCD. He spent most of his medical career in the US where he specialised in oncology. He is the nephew of Bishop Christopher Jones, the former Bishop of Elphin.

What is your vocation story?

I was a physician for 28 years. There were a lot of religious in my family. I volunteered at Church; prison ministry, homebound ministry and homeless ministry. All of this was in Houston, Texas. I was a lector and extraordinary minister in the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, Texas. I had two uncles who were priests and two aunts who were religious sisters.

Could you tell us about your experience with young people?

We have six primary schools and a secondary school in Castlerea so there is much need for youth ministry. I have experience in Youth 2000 and Camp Veritas. We have a Youth 2000 group in Sligo which I help out at. I have been touring the Catholic schools of the diocese with Fr Pat Lombard, Fr Raul Ino and the CFR Sisters. So far, we went to Ursaline College (Sligo), Mercy Convent (Sligo), Abbey College (Boyle), Castlerea Community School and Coláiste Chiarán (Athlone).

Do you think the infrastructure is there to get vocations and what needs to be done?

Do I think the infrastructure is there? Yes. I think we need a change in our culture and in our acceptance towards young people going into religious formation. I think we should have a healthier attitude towards young people spending some time in religious formation whether they get ordained/professed or not. Parents must be more encouraging towards this.

As a newly appointed vocations director, what advice do you have for someone discerning a vocation?

In the past, many young men went into seminary and found it to be a seminal formative experience in their lives. It made them who they are today. The vast majority went on to married or lay single life but with a strong spiritual foundation. So, spending time in seminary can only benefit you. Many young people get this spiritual foundation in Holy Family Mission or through NET Ministries. People must remember that less than 30% of those that enter seminary become ordained to ministerial priesthood. I laughed one day when I saw a newspaper headline saying, to the effect, that a certain person by entering seminary was going to be a priest. We have this rather fixed idea that discerning a vocation in seminary is an irreversible and fixed life changing decision. When the exact opposite is true. Seminary life is a time to discern your vocation with the help of professional staff. So, if anyone wants to discern a vocation, or even just deepen their faith, I would talk to a priest that you know and are comfortable talking to. My personal sense of being a Vocations Director is more about getting to know young people in my community and helping them on their spiritual journey and less about me finding vocations for the priesthood. It is a soft form of young adult evangelisation. If vocations come out of that work, well then, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

In what ways have your experiences of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the US been similar?

Culturally, the Catholic Church in Ireland and the United States are very similar. And, why not? Many US Catholics come from Irish descendants. For that reason, the appearances of many of the churches and the style of liturgy are quite similar. I remember going to Mass in St Patrick’s Church in San Francisco, across the street from the Moscone Centre, with all of the stained-glass windows funded by different counties in Ireland and representing the Irish saint of that county. Even with the congregation being majority Filipino their lay faithful had a strong devotion to St Patrick and sang Irish songs throughout the year. Traditions surrounding funerals and baptisms, as well as First Holy Communion and Confirmation, are remarkably similar between the two countries, possibly because of immigration. The challenges that the Churches in both countries face are quite similar and are a consequence of an increasingly secular culture. However, the emerging use of social media as a method of evangelisation, especially of younger people, is notable in both countries.

In what ways have your experiences of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the US been different?

Lay participation in the Church is far greater in the United States and the lay faithful are much more empowered to make decisions. They have had deacons in the US Church since 1968 and now there are roughly 20,000 permanent deacons; actually, 40% of all the deacons in the world come from the US. Because of that deacons play a much more significant role in liturgy and in the Church as a whole. Unfortunately, politics has been very polarised in the US, and that has bled into Church politics. Priests in the US have very strong and divergent political viewpoints. In my own diocese of Elphin the priests are remarkable similar in liturgical, religious and political outlook and are less consumed by the day-to-day political theatre that dominates the news cycle. The United States is very multicultural and has citizens of many different religious backgrounds. These different faith backgrounds can subtly change the US Catholic Church in ways I feel are largely positive. For example, Christian Evangelical and Pentecostal music is frequently used in youth gatherings in the US that I personally believe it is a positive addition, and something that we are seeing more commonly in Ireland.

What was your experience of assisting with the medical team in Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic?

I was a vaccinator in the Knocknarea Sports Centre in Sligo during the summer break from seminary in 2021. It was a brilliant experience working with pharmacists and the defence forces. There was a great esprit de corps with everyone pulling together to make it happen. The organisation around it was astounding; impressive. The presbyterian minister in Sligo town, David Clarke, is a pharmacist, and was vaccinating at the same time! It helped that everyone coming in was very happy and appreciated to be vaccinated. Also, all our clients were young and in good health, so we moved people through at a pretty fast clip. My favourite part was people telling me they were nervous, and I would start asking them a lot of questions to distract them, and when they asked me to let them know before getting the jab I would tell them I’d already done it! Some of them didn’t believe I had already administered it, and I remember joking with more than a few that I would give them a second one if they really wanted it. My last day they gave me a parting gift and an honour guard which touched me.

In what ways has your medical experience enriched your outlook on priestly ministry?

Communication and listening are key in both vocations. I strongly maintain medicine is a vocation in the same way ministerial priesthood is. Silent listening can be a very powerful tool. Trying to figure out what is motivating people and what their concerns are is always challenging. Sometimes the things that are troubling people is not always what they tell you at first. There are often layers of concerns and it can take time to discern what is the root cause of their anxiety. Naturally, the onset of physical illness brings with it an existential threat and consequently spiritual concerns come to the fore when this happens. It helps to have a sense of how serious a medical problem is as well as an understanding of what patients go through when the experience an illness.

As euthanasia/assisted suicide has been debated in Ireland in recent months, what advice have you, as a doctor, for politicians in this debate?

Simply put, we must emphasise as physicians that physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is simply suicide. Making suicide ‘physician-assisted’ is supposed to give suicide a patina of societal acceptability. Proponents of PAS are trading on the largely positive view patients have of their doctors in order to make suicide more palatable to the public. Research studies have shown that in states in the United States that have legalised PAS, over time, all forms of suicide increase, including non-assisted. Legalising PAS would effectively mark a cultural shift in the way we view suicide. We have come too far as a country in trying to prevent suicides and to help people thinking of suicide to allow PAS to normalise and legitimise suicide. It is clear that PAS would undermine efforts to maintain state-of-the science palliative care. PAS also specifically threatens and discriminates against those who have a mental illness or economic deprivation. The detrimental effects of PAS cannot be safeguarded against legislatively and will become apparent if it is legalised. After all, if society determines that it is a legal right to take your life if you have a terminal illness, why shouldn’t you have the same legal right if you do not have a terminal illness? Why are we restricting this so-called freedom? My belief is that PAS is a graduated slippery slope to eventual legalised suicide for everyone and would be a harm and threat to society.