Rev. Thomas C. Mulligan

MULLIGAN

Posted By: Rita Gervais (email)
Date: 2/10/2024 at 13:06:46

Published in The Patrician, San Mateo County, California, Winter Edition.

In Memoriam - Thomas C. Mulligan. Just about thirty years ago, when the writer was a first theologian in the Washington, D. C. seminary, he met a priest-professor who was then thirty years old, and asked him why he had become a Sulpician. The young teacher answered quickly; "Because I felt that it was the work closest to the Heart of Christ, and because, although I came from from a diocese that needed priests, there were too few men engaged in this special priestly work." And it was to this work that Father Mulligan devoted his entire life. Born in Iowa in 1892, and ordained there for the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 1916, he was given leave in that year to go to the Sulpicians. Intense and earnest, he won by his excellence in theology the doctorate at the Angelicum in Rome in 1918. It was then that his real work began. From the beginning he was a priest for priests. And the power of Father Mulligan's life lies in one thing only, the goal of all his acts, the end of his work, the greatest love of his heart: the priesthood of Our Lord and Our Lord's priests. He was a pioneer twice over. He opened the young Basseling Foundation at the Catholic University, and for seven years directed it, smoothed its difficulties, won it friends, and put the new venture on firm footing. Basselin he left only to answer the call of St. Edward's in Seattle. Every foot of ground there, every stone of the seminary's foundation, every brick of its building as well as every priest ordained from St. Edward's bears the stamp of his zeal, of his love for the priesthood, of his longing to bring to those lands the priestly heart he carried within him. Thirteen years he spent in Seattle, and a weary man he was at the end of it. But with only a year between he was appointed rector of St. Patrick's Seminary. It was not pioneer work this time, and Father Mulligan was able to give more time to the study and teaching of theology that he esteemed so highly. Here too not only among the seminarians, but among the priests and layfolk also, his zeal for souls, his love for the priesthood shone forth. He use to like to say he counted by thirteens: thirteen years in Seattle, thirteen years at Menlo Park, and then when a crippling illness sent him to St. Thomas in Louisville, he would say: "Now thirteen years in Louisville." He taught a full schedule of formal classes there, but only to a small number of students. Still for the example of priestliness, of love of the Blessed Sacrament, of regularity, of kindness, of cheerfulness, everyone was in his debt. It was there hat he died on June 7th of this year. He was buried in the cemetery at St. Charles College. Those who have been for the past forty years either associated with him in Sulpician teaching or have studied under him now have crowded memories of Father Thomas C. Mulligan, who during all those years kept himself in his work very close to the Heart of Christ and who greatly helped to supply many a diocese with hundreds of finer priests because they had come under his influence. Only some of these memories can be recorded here. The first is his unswerving adherence to principle, even stiff and unbending, for which some might criticize him. Let it be so. Only this we must remember, that were it not for his kind, we who criticize would bend all to far. He was a priest for priests; and he expected every priest to measure up to the ideal. There was utter inflexibility, sternness even, in anything that touched upon the priesthood. He himself, with that redeeming humor he always had, often told the story of the young lad at St. Edward's Seminary in Seattle who when asked by his parents if Father Mulligan was strict answered: "Well, you know that winding road that comes up to the Seminary from the main highway? Well, whenever Father Mulligan comes up that road, it straightens out right in front of him." When some years ago Father Mulligan, on the occasion of a trip to Europe for the Sulpician Chapter, made a special pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Francis of Assisi to pray for patience, the writer recalled what St. Basil once said. The Saint answered the question, "Who is meek?" by saying: "He who is unalterable in his decisions upon the things that are done to please God." And that is the explanation of the inflexibility and sternness Father Mulligan carried through the years in the seminary. And a modern spiritual writer tells us: "Meekness is no insurance against irritation. It does not prevent the boat from being rocked, but it does keep us in the boat. It helps us to be irritated at the right time, for the right reasons, against the right persons and in the right manner, and then only when and as long as we ought to be." Father Mulligan alway stayed in the boat. Another memory, a clear lesson for his brother Sulpicians, concerns his natural ties to father, mother, brothers, and sisters. These were deep, rich, and intimate up to the last day of his life. In the midst of his special priestly work Father Mulligan was always intensely interested in what was happening to his folks, no matter where he was stationed, far from them or near; yet he never allowed this interest to interfere with his seminary work. Whenever there was a free day at St. Patrick's, for example, he always spent some time visiting his sisters in San Francisco, but he never failed to return to the seminary long before the students reported back, even if it meant his having to leave the table in the midst of a dinner where he was visiting. During the long vacations he used to take one or two of the Fathers from the seminary and drive with his relatives to scenic parts of the country, but always to places where he could offer Holy Mass. On these trips, whether he or someone else was driving, he always led the others in reciting the Rosary. The final memory of this great priest who taught so many future priests is of the profoundly earnest way in which he always performed the work he felt was nearest to the Heart of Christ. The hundreds upon hundred of students who are now in the Holy Priesthood will never forget -- for he reminded them of it so often -- the story he repeated at every opportunity, which ended by the statement: "Only the best will do." Father Mulligan did everything himself in the best possible manner. He would be intense in Spiritual Reading; although his voice was not strong, he would sing High Mass or preach a Retreat or a sermon intensely. He did everything according to his maxim and he wanted everyone with whom he came in contact to follow that maxim: "Only the best will do."