News

Reverend Monsignor Thomas Paul Hadden
Celebration of 50 years of Priesthood
December 20, 2008
Sacred Heart Cathedral
Raleigh, North Carolina

Advent is a time of preparation for the celebration of the birth of the Savior, a time of rededicating ourselves to the service of the Lord and His people, a time of looking forward to the coming of Christ, both to ourselves and to our world.

Our Scriptures announce both the promise of the Savior and the announcement to Mary, our Blessed Mother, that she of all women had been chosen to be the mother of the Savior. Listen to the Angel: “Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Mary answered this special call of God, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.” Here we see in Mary the supreme example of one responding positively to the call of the Lord. She accepted her vocation and ultimately became the Mother of us all.

Today, as we look forward to the greatest gift God could give us, we look back to another call more than fifty years ago. This call was made through the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters and Dominican Priests at St. Monica Parish in Raleigh, where a young Thomas Paul Hadden studied and learned about and accepted our Catholic Faith. This call also came through Father Habbet and the Daughters of Charity at Our Lady of Victory High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, who encouraged Thomas Paul to answer again by saying yes to a call to priesthood. He also answered by enrolling at St. Augustine Seminary, the Society of the Divine Word Preparatory Seminary, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. He did not particularly want to join the Society of the Divine Word or to study in far away Mississippi, but where else would a young African American be accepted for study for the priesthood?

Then God acted again through seminarian (later Father) Raymond Donohue, who found Thomas Paul in East Raleigh during his summer vacation and the annual seminarian census program. Father Donohue went directly to Bishop Vincent Waters, the third Bishop of Raleigh, and told him of this young African American Raleigh native, studying for the priesthood in Mississippi. Bishop Waters immediately invited Mr. Hadden to his office and after the usual prerequisites invited Thomas Paul to study to become a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh. It was this answered call that led to his ordination in Rome fifty years ago today.

Father Hadden said yes to the Lord each step of the way. He said yes to study at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana and yes to study at the North American College in Rome, where he was the first African American student at this National Seminary.

I have known Monsignor Hadden for 54 years. We met as seminarians in Southern Pines the summer before he began his studies at the North American College and Gregorian University in Rome. We have had an interesting friendship ever since. We have always challenged, tested, and questioned each other, and yet through all these years when the die was cast we have always come to the support of each other.

I must confess, though, that I never fully understood Monsignor Hadden until this year when I read the autobiography of John Hope Franklin. This great scholar, this historian who has received more accolades and honors than most, opened his heart and his soul in his autobiography, Mirror on America, and displayed to the world what it has meant to be an African American scholar in America.

As I read this book I thought more and more of Monsignor Hadden. I watched as he made the rounds of a parish priest. One spring we took a day trip around the far eastern part of the Diocese. We ate at the Whiteville rectory because no restaurant would serve us and we returned home in the evening because there was no motel for an African American. I watched as Father Hadden matured into a caring, sensitive pastor and then became the first African American Pastor of an historic and predominately white parish in the South. I prayed for him that first night in the rectory. Would he be bombed? Would the house be set afire? There was fear on my part, if not on his, but the night passed quietly.

Thomas Paul walked proudly and simply served all his people. He endured the slights that followed – perhaps not being invited to a civic function that had always invited the local priest; perhaps not having his picture in the window of the local photographer that always hung the pictures of the local pastors in the window during Christmas season. Perhaps not being wanted at the wedding ceremony of one of his parishioners. Father Hadden continued his daily pastoring, and because of his goodness he became accepted and loved as the Pastor of St. Paul in New Bern and was recognized as such by the civic community of which he became a loyal and active member. Many who had vocally rejected him at his appointment became his ardent supporters and wept when eventually his transfer came. But the slights did not end with a transfer to Raleigh; they have continued in big and little ways even to today. I can’t help by think of what was said of Ginger Rogers once: “She did everything Fred Astaire did but she did it backwards and in high heels.” Monsignor Hadden was never able to be average; he was always called to be one step beyond average and he has been.

He was the longest serving Chairman of the Priests’ Senate and the Council of Priests, and the longest serving member of this council of which he is still a member after 42 years. He was dean of the clergy in New Bern, Wilmington and Raleigh. He was the founding Director of African American Ministry and now African Ancestry Ministry. He has served with distinction for most of his priesthood as Vicar for African Americans and people of African Ancestry. He was a Diocesan Consultor to Bishop Gossman for more than 25 years.

In the late 1960s Bishop Waters appointed an interracial panel of priests and Religious to tour the state to promote the unity of all God’s people. With Father Hadden as our Chair we went from the ocean to the mountains, holding a forum in a different city every night. We were exhausted at the end, but I can’t help but think that we planted some good seeds, mostly because of the leadership of Father Hadden.

Today, as Monsignor Hadden celebrates fifty years of Priesthood, he continues his ministry, somewhat subdued, but with great dedication. Well into his 80th year he is still Vicar for people of African Ancestry, member of the Council of Priests, Acting Director of the Office of African Ancestry Ministry, and special associate at this Cathedral. He is here one day per week to talk with any and all who come, as counselor and/or confessor. He celebrates a weekly Sunday Mass. In addition to all this, he writes a monthly column for the NC Catholics magazine.

But all is not work for the good Monsignor. He knows how to relax and enjoy the company of his brother priests and lay friends. We dine together frequently on Sunday evening, where he is very outgoing. Before we leave the restaurant he knows the wait person, the bar tender and the manager.

Monsignor Hadden, we honor you for living the yes you said fifty years ago. We celebrate your commitment to the priesthood of Jesus Christ and to His people, and we thank you for your fifty years of dedicated service here in the Diocese of Raleigh. May our Lord give you many more years of health and ministry, for we are all the better because of your service to us. Ad Multos Annos!