Fr. Francis Connolly: A High Country Godsend

By Frank Ruggiero

To call his a blessed life would seem almost too obvious.

Further, it would likely result in a chuckle from Fr. Francis Connolly.

However, Connolly will admit he has a “providential” relationship with Boone. The retired Catholic priest is a familiar face in the area, having served at the St. Elizabeth parish, but also stepping over the so-called denominational boundaries in the High Country’s spiritual community.

Father Frank Connolly listens to a little Doc Watson as he sits in the comfort of his room at Appalachian /Brian Estates. Photo by Marie Freeman

Though he now lives at the Appalachian/Brian Estates, Connolly’s apartment seems a high traffic area – fellow residents dropping by for a chat, sometimes counsel, but always his company. While he was, at first, skeptical of living in the retirement community, Connolly has grown particularly fond of his fellow residents, and even the food leaves little to be desired.

Connolly looks back on a life that’s led him across the seas with the Navy, around globe with the Roman Catholic Church, deep into the prison ministry, and even through the Appalachian Trail as a hiker – quite fitting, considering his first professional ambition was to work in forestry.

Having grown up in New Jersey, Connolly attended Rutgers University for a degree in agriculture and graduated in 1951.

“I had an idealized idea of forestry,” he said. “I’d seen too many movies. I wanted to grow trees, and I came down here and found growing trees required agriculture.”

He pursued an education in forestry at Duke University in 1952, where he was paid a a monthly stipend and introduced to the South. Connolly admitted he was never too good with his hands, but said, “I’m at awe with the fellow who built the church here,” referring to St. Elizabeth’s.

Connolly remained at Duke for a year and a half, and then changed his major to wood technology for a master’s degree, graduating to later find a job with Thomasville Chair in Thomasville.

“That’s when I began talking about the priesthood,” he said. “I’d never thought about it before; I wasn’t a pious kid – an innocent kid, but by no means pious.”

He recalls his mother praying the rosary on a regular basis, and religion had been a part of his young life. But the facet that frightened Connolly was that of celibacy. “Celibacy really scared me,” he admitted. “I had a hard time imagining going through life without a wife and a couple kids.”

Connolly described 1952 North Carolina as the least Catholic state in the country. “I think Wyoming was number two,” he added. His mother was the only one in his family who approved of his decision. Connolly began to cut down on his dating, considering this was necessary if he were to pursue the priesthood.

One day, while attending mass in Thomasville, he said to two girls, “Please don’t think I’m vain because I would’ve asked you or your sister for a date, but I’m thinking of joining the seminary.”

Before he knew it, the girls had told his priest, who later approached him with advice – the parish would help pay for his seminary school, if he was serous about pursuing the priesthood. However, a visit from the bishop nearly changed his mind, after learning it would take about seven years.

Still working at a factory for Thomasville Chair, Connolly had a change of heart after nearly losing a hand in a woodworking accident. While working on a chair, the joiner split under his hands, coming frighteningly close to severing a hand. “I checked my hand to see if it was still there,” Connolly recalled. A week before, he’d read an article in a Christian newspaper that included a passage about the importance of two forefingers and two thumbs.

“So, I figured I was getting a message from God,” he said. “I sent the damned application in that night, and I was on my way.”

This was in the summer of 1954, and Connolly soon found himself attending the Jesuit House in Massachusetts to learn Latin for a year and three weeks of Greek. “I was surrounded by some of the smartest guys of the Roman Catholic Church,” he said. “They had years of Latin and Greek, and I wanted to go to agriculture school.”

In 1956, Connolly was asked if he’d like to visit Rome for four years to study theology. The answer was a no-brainer. He grew to love Italian food and wine, no longer confusing it with “Tex-Mex” as he had in the past. The seminary was strict in Rome, and Connolly found himself nearly kicked out for a minor infraction. He and a few other students had brought Coca-Cola into their apartment while studying near the Pope’s summer villa.

“We sat on three little stools before the rector,” Connolly recalled. “I felt like it was the Inquisition, and we were told we had to keep up appearances.”

Coca-Cola aside, Connolly admitted it was a great time to be in Rome. He and his friends traveled throughout Europe for a month every summer, absorbing the sights and sounds of many different countries in the time of the Iron Curtain.

In 1959, he was ordained and, in 1960, left Rome to return to North Carolina, where the newly-ordained were sent to two cities – North Wilkesboro and Newton Grove. However, Connolly was eventually assigned Boone and West Jefferson, and he began to grow fond of the area.

His time in the priesthood sent him throughout the state, and he served at parishes in Durham, Franklin, and Greensboro. His last parish was St. Pius in Greensboro, where he remained until retirement in 2000 before returning to Boone. However, location was never as important as the actual moment, and Connolly often refers to the sacrament of the moment, as described in the book by Jean Pierre de Caussade, “The Sacrament of the Present Moment.”

Connolly lives in the moment, appreciating the present and all that accompanies and surrounds it. It was this mindset that helped him fight and overcome a personal demon – alcoholism. Connolly drank for 32 years, but, by living in the moment, he can see beauty in all a moment entails – people, places, sounds and even the most miniscule details.

Though the big picture always remains in sight, concentrating on the moments that compose this picture allow one to focus and overcome even the most daunting tasks.

This focus guided him through various parishes and has broadened his view of Christianity as a whole. Connolly does not look down on other denominations, instead seeing them as “One Lord, one faith, one baptism,” he said. He has grown somewhat disillusioned with organized religion, feeling politics have overcome what is truly important.

“Trust in God – the most important thing in the world,” Connolly said. “The problems today are money talks and peace is not an option. The idea of politics is you help your friends out. The idea of religion is reconciliation.”