By DIANE Schlindwein
Managing Editor

While many of us are looking forward to the warmer temperatures and longer days of May, Seminarian Padrick Mulligan is happiest about something else. On the evening of Friday, May 22, he will be ordained to the transitional diaconate for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. 

Mulligan, who is 34, says his road to becoming a deacon — and next a priest — has taken many twists and turns. He was born in Glen Carbon and spent his first few years at St. Cecilia Parish before his family moved to Edwardsville, where they were members of St. Mary Parish. He attended mostly public schools until high school, when he “followed his father’s footsteps in Jesuit high school education” and attended St. Louis U High. He was a musician, ran cross country and track, and eventually earned his Eagle rank in the Boy Scouts.

After deciding on a future career, Mulligan applied to and attended Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Besides working as an engineer, in his younger years he also worked at Boy Scout camps, was a recreational youth gymnastics instructor, and drove a school bus. 

Mulligan says he stopped practicing his faith in college, but a few years into his engineering career he rediscovered his faith. “I was 23 when I first considered priesthood a possibility for my future, but it was not until over two years later that I began to take it seriously as a genuine calling. During my last two years as an engineer, I lived in St. Louis,” he said. “For this reason, I chose to be sponsored by the Archdiocese of St. Louis when I first applied to Kenrick-Glennon Seminary to pursue my vocation to the priesthood in 2018. 

“I have always had a strong natural desire for marriage, but I began to see a very particular joy in the expression of priestly fatherhood that I saw in Father Dan (Bergbower, who was his pastor at St. Mary Parish),” he said. “I spent about six months seriously discerning before I felt I was ready to leave my engineering career and apply to the seminary, knowing that I was doing so in pursuit of something very good and not to run away from some other stress or difficulty in my life.” 

At the end of his second year of seminary, Mulligan requested to be transferred from the St. Louis Archdiocese to the Springfield Diocese, a “homecoming transfer” that he said was “absolutely the work of the Holy Spirit.” However, in the fourth year of seminary, he decided to withdraw from Kenrick to address some anxiety he was feeling. “That anxiety was not due to any unfair burden imposed on me, but rather due to my own unsureness of whether I really knew God well enough to continue on this path within which I would promise to serve joyfully His Church for the rest of my life.” 

It was during that “gap year” that he learned to “depend radically on Jesus to be the source of the joy of priesthood.” He says that through the priesthood he hopes to show people that “the beautiful, saving essence of Jesus Christ is to make Himself accessible to each of us.”

 When he returned to formation, Mulligan spent an internship year at St. Agnes School in Springfield, before returning to Kenrick for his studies. Recently he has also been in a pastoral assignment at St. Boniface Parish in Edwardsville, serving with Father Jeff Goeckner and Father Braden Maher. 

Mulligan has asked Father Don Wolford to vest him at his ordination. “I met Father Wolford in 2020 when I stayed with him and now-Father (Charles) Delano for the summer, weathering the challenges of the COVID pandemic together,” he said. “Father Wolford is an excellent preacher and proclaims the Gospel with his whole heart and life. He is truly a servant of Christ and a good friend, and I look up to him in these respects.” 

In addition to Father Bergbower and Father Wolford, Mulligan names several other priests who have been instrumental in his years of formation. “Father Michael Marchlewski, SJ, and Msgr. Mike Turek were inspiring and helpful to me, especially in the early stages of my discernment,” he said. “I also have two high school classmates who are priests for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Father George Staley and Father John Schneier, who I have looked up to throughout my discernment and formation process. There are many priests in our diocese who have influenced me through relationship and fraternity, including Father Rob Johnson, Father Chris Trummer, Father Michael Friedel, Father Ryan Kehoe, Father Richard Chiola, Father Steven Arisman, and many others.”

The middle son of Drs. Michael and Michelle Mulligan, he has always felt close to his parents and both his older brother Michael and his younger brother Sean. “I also have one niece, who is also my goddaughter, and one nephew, both from my older brother and his wife Luna,” he said.  

“My parents are both doctors of family medicine.  They are lifelong Catholics and have  been married for 38 years,” he said. “I have been nurtured by their love for each other and for their prioritization of family and education — and inspired by how I have seen them care of their patients with servants’ hearts.”  He added that his family has always been supportive of his vocation, and that he grateful for the prayers of the countless people in this diocese and elsewhere who pray for seminarians and priests. “Your prayers are effective!” he said. 

Mulligan says he is looking forward to preaching. “Although I have only thus far been preparing practice homilies for homiletics class, I find it fulfilling to pray deeply about the Scriptures and to ask God to make me an instrument for proclaiming the message of the Gospel at Mass,” he said. “I think the process of preparing homilies that are not just of interest to me but will feed other people spiritually will help me in learning to love people well through my ministry as a deacon.”