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June 18, 2021By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent
WORCESTER – Msgr. Michael G. Foley has been a priest for 50 years and his younger brother, Father John J. Foley, has been one for 47.
Nearly a century of combined service in the Worcester Diocese will come to an end when they retire on June 30.
Both insisted that, if they were younger and healthy, they’d remain as pastors. Msgr. Foley is 75, the age when priests are required to submit their resignations according to canon law. Father Foley, 73, is retiring due to health concerns, including rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, osteoarthritis and neuropathy.
The Foleys are the only brothers who are priests in the diocese. They feel blessed to have had one another to turn to for advice over the years.
“That is the greatest gift I could have,” said Msgr. Foley, pastor at St. Luke the Evangelist in Westborough for 15 years.
“It probably saved my vocation,” said Father Foley, pastor at St. Anne Church in Shrewsbury for 12 years. “After two years, I was ready to walk and if I didn’t have his support and his view on things, I think I would have said goodbye.”
His brother helped him realize he was meant to be a priest and he’s since impacted countless parishioners. Father Foley was pastor at Good Shepherd in Linwood and at Christ the King in Worcester before taking over at St. Anne.
He previously served as an associate at St. Andrew the Apostle in Worcester, St. Mary in North Grafton and Our Lady of the Rosary in Worcester, and he ran the religious education program at St. Edmund’s Center for 1,250 children at St. Joseph in Auburn.
Before coming to St. Luke, Msgr. Foley served as pastor at St. John Church in Worcester and St. Mary of the Assumption in Milford. For the previous decade, he was director of youth ministry and assistant director of religious education for the diocese.
Msgr. Foley has always had the same advice for young priests: “Just love the people. If you love the people, you’re going to be fine.”
Sometimes that love requires some inconvenience. On a recent day off, Msgr. Foley went to bed early as he always does. He was awakened by a phone call asking him to give the last rites to a dying parishioner. So he got dressed, anointed the woman and prayed with the family.
“There’s not a lot of 75-year-olds who get called out in the night to take care of somebody,” he said. “Love requires a lot of patience.”
Many years ago, just after Msgr. Foley officiated at a wedding, he received an emergency call from Milford Hospital where he was chaplain. A 50-year-old father had died suddenly. So, he spent an hour and a half with the family and then headed to the wedding reception. People at the reception noticed he wasn’t as happy as he had been during the wedding ceremony. Not wanting to spoil the reception’s festive atmosphere, he didn’t say where he had been.
“The biggest stress,” Father Foley said, “is going from highs to lows and from lows to highs, all in the same day, maybe twice.”
One or two nights a week, the Foleys stay together on the third floor of a Vernon Hill three-decker in which they grew up. Father Foley was 10 months old when his family moved into the first floor of the house that was then owned by his grandparents. The four Foley boys slept in two bunk beds in the back bedroom, the two girls in another room. The three-decker was condemned after a fire in 2007, but was restored, and relatives still live on all three floors.
The life of a priest can be lonely at times, so the companionship of the brothers helped a great deal.
“When we were ordained,” Father Foley said, “there were always a couple of guys in the rectory. I would say 90 percent of the men now live alone and that makes a big difference. It’s an adjustment.”
The Foleys plan to spend some time after retirement at their cottage in Marshfield, but they expect to fill in celebrating Mass at times in the Worcester diocese and at St. Anne by the Sea in Marshfield.
In his four decades as a pastor, Msgr. Foley has been away from his parish on consecutive weekends only once – for a 14-day vacation in Brazil with a Redemptorist Brazilian priest who was helping him at St. Mary.
Father Foley was sidelined for three months nearly 40 years ago after he tore ligaments in his back while applying the Heimlich maneuver to successfully save his father’s life.
When he was at St. John Church, Msgr. Foley never turned down an invitation to celebrate at a parishioner’s home after a baptism.
“I got more people coming back to church from those visits,” he said, “than anything formal that you’d ever do.”
Father Foley declined the chance to teach in college or high school and Msgr. Foley turned down an invitation to become a diplomat in Rome.
“The reason I’m a parish priest is because I want to be with the people,” Msgr. Foley said.
“There’s a real goodness in most people,” Msgr. Foley said, “and sometimes it has to be drawn out because they’re upset or they’re angry or afraid. If you’re patient, you can help nurture the goodness in them and I think that’s what our role is, to nurture the goodness in people.”
When Father Foley became pastor, Good Shepherd Parish hadn’t had a baptism in a year or a wedding in two years. Only 11 students took part in religious education and few people attended Mass. He revitalized the congregation in part by opening the church for people to gather following funerals and getting to know them.
“My philosophy is, I want to leave the parish in better shape than when I got there,” Father Foley said. “Not just financially, but spiritually and every which way you can. If I’ve done that, that’s my greatest accomplishment.”
When Msgr. Foley was pastor at St. Mary, he was asked to say Mass for the New England Patriots while they stayed at a hotel in Milford the night before home games. He later said Mass at hotels in Dedham and Norwood, and occasionally at Gillette Stadium, usually in the offensive linemen’s room or special teams’ room.
Even though Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri was dyslexic, he served as a lector at Mass and he told Msgr. Foley he was far more nervous reading in front of teammates at Mass than he was kicking game-winning field goals in Super Bowls.
Msgr. Foley said Mass for the Patriots for 29 years before taking last fall off due to the pandemic. In honor of his 25th year with the team, the Patriots presented him with a jersey with his name and No. 25 on it.
On the mantel in the third-floor apartment sits a football encased in glass that Patriots coaches presented to Msgr. Foley, with his name and the 28-24 score of their Super Bowl victory over Seattle in 2015 inscribed on it.
Msgr. Foley is proud that St. Luke’s doors have never been locked over the past 13 years, not even during the pandemic, so people could drop by to pray day or night.
“This is God’s world,” he said. “We had to work our butts off, but the overall picture is in his hands, and he knows what he’s doing. It’s like you’re on a wave and it’s a little dangerous, but it’s exhilarating. Even at almost 76 and 50 years as a priest, I still feel that wave.”
