By Cardinal O'Connor

In a historic development for the Catholic Church in San Francisco, a deaf priest is now pastor of a deaf congregation in San Francisco and three deaf seminarians are studying at St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park.

"It felt like a miracle," said Father Thomas Coughlin about Archbishop William J. Levada's decision to welcome the three seminarians to San Francisco this fall and appoint Father Coughlin pastor of San Francisco's St. Benedict Parish at St. Francis Xavier Church, known for its deaf congregation.

As the first born-deaf man to be ordained a Catholic priest in North America , Father Coughlin defied many doubters and silenced a long list of critics. The priest hopes "to shield" seminarians Gislain Cheret Bazikila, Matthew Hysell and Paul Zirimenya from the intolerance he says he suffered before and after his ordination in 1977.

Father Coughlin had been searching for a U.S. seminary to receive deaf students since the New York Archdiocese ended its program for deaf seminarians in 2000.

"People labeled us as a problem. We are not the problem, we are the solution," he said.

During his 25 years as a priest, Father Coughlin said he has seen thousands of deaf Catholics join other churches because the "Catholic Church did not have a significant number of priests to minister to the deaf community."

Arvilla Rank of the National Catholic Office of the Deaf agrees that there is a desperate need for deaf priests. The national office estimates between 100,000 and 170,000 people in California are deaf and only 3 percent, if that, are churched.

There are only seven or eight deaf Catholic priests in the United States, said Rank. "California is lucky to have three of them. Two of the priests are serving in Southern California, while San Francisco has Father Thomas Coughlin."

Now that St. Patrick's has welcomed the deaf seminarians, Father Coughlin said, "I feel relieved."

Sulpician Father Gerald Coleman, president and rector of St. Patrick's, said the deaf students have won the esteem of the seminary community and the faculty has become educated about the specialized needs of deaf students.

Measures to assist the students include student mentors, class note-takers, theological tutors, approved spiritual directors and advisers from outside the seminary faculty. There are also carefully chosen field education assignments and specialized equipment such as telephones and computer hardware.

Hysell said St. Patrick's has been accommodating without the paternalism of many educational institutions for disabled people.

"The student body accepted us academically, as well as socially, and invited us to join in on the soccer games. We are treated as equals. In many ways, the seminary is a school of holiness," Hysell said.

After extensive study of Catholicism, Hysell of Muskegon, Mich., became a Catholic in 1993.

The other two deaf seminarians are from Africa..

Born in Kampala, Uganda, Zirimenya praised the help he receives from the faculty and student body.

Bazikila was born in Brazzaville, Congo. He was a seminarian in Brazzaville for nine years, then suddenly became deaf.

"Father Coughlin is the first deaf priest I have met in my life, and he gave me hope," he said. "I feel I have a special calling to minister to the deaf people."

French is the first language of Bazikila who attends English classes along with other foreign students.

"I am enjoying my studies, but it is a challenge," he said.

With the students came a great interest in American Sign Language. An expert in signing conducts a course at the seminary. Twenty-six members of the seminary community registered for the classes.

One of the students taught Father Coleman three signs: hello; goodbye; and you're crazy. Soon, Father Coleman said, "I hope to sign: 'Hello, it's a gift to have you here, and I'd be crazy not to realize that. Goodbye!'"

Another young deaf man who wants to become a priest is currently studying at City College of San Francisco. Father Coughlin said two other deaf men will arrive in January to begin their undergraduate program at City College.

Min Seo Park, one of the deaf seminarians who began his studies in the New York Archdiocese's program at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, continued his theology education at St. John's University in New York and will be ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Seoul, South Korea.

"He will be ordained hopefully in 2004, as the first deaf man ever to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in the whole of Asia.," Father Coughlin said.

The Sunday afternoon Mass for the Deaf at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church on East 83rd Street is always deeply moving. This past Sunday's was special. Father Thomas Coughlin concelebrated. Father Coughlin is a deaf-mute, although he frequently mouths the words so articulately that one hardly needs his interpreter in order to understand him. He is very special to the Archdiocese of New York and to the Church Universal.

Msgr. Patrick McCahill is equally special in a different way. He is not a deaf-mute. He "signs" (uses sign language) as fluently as though he were. He has been doing so since seminary days 36 years ago and is charged with ministry to the deaf in New York. It is he who arranges for me to celebrate the Mass at St. Elizabeth's. His fidelity to the deaf is unlimited. When Father Coughlin first wanted to come to New York to meet with me, it was to Msgr. McCahill that I turned for advice. It was he who sat with us during that first astonishing meeting; astonishing to me because Father Coughlin wanted me to establish a seminary for the deaf and for deaf-mutes.

I had never dreamed of such a seminary or reflected for even a moment about its possibility. What has distressed me, however, each time I have celebrated Mass for deaf-mutes has been that, whereas after many Masses I call on single men present to reflect on the possibility of becoming priests, I said never a word at these special Masses. It pained me not to be able to do so, because I assumed it impossible. Now we have one, or the very substantial making of a seminary uniquely for the purpose, joined with our own archdiocesan seminary of St. Joseph's. What is the story? The story is largely Father Thomas Coughlin, dynamo.

Father Coughlin got me thinking--and reading. I read about the very large number of deaf and of deaf-mutes in our land. I read of how so many feel disenfranchised, sense that they are treated as strange, even scary, with some people clearly afraid of them. I read, too, of those desirous of becoming priests, who feel hopeless! Father Coughlin told me of his own experience.

He had done his college work at Gallaudet College for the Deaf in Washington. I had known of the college and its fine reputation because of my own years in Washington. His theology he studied at the Theological College of Catholic University in Washington, this time using a sign interpreter. Finally ordained to the priesthood, he has spent his years largely ministering for the deaf and deaf-mutes. Now he wants to make it possible for others to follow in his footsteps.

Father Coughlin wants more for aspirants to the priesthood, however, than to have them live as "odd men out" in an ordinary seminary, where prayers and Mass and meals are all for the hearing and speaking. Signed interpretations of classroom lectures is one thing; having a community to live and pray and communicate with is another.

With Msgr. McCahill's support, the enthusiastic agreement of the then-rector of our seminary, Bishop Edwin O'Brien (a position strongly affirmed by his successor, Msgr. Francis McAree), I gave Father Coughlin the nod. He has since bought a modest house near the seminary for candidates to live and pray, dine and communicate together. When the time comes, according to current plans, they will take classes in St. Joseph's Seminary. If one day enough trained priests can teach them through sign, their seminary may become uniquely theirs. In the meanwhile, we have invited bishops from throughout the United States to use our option, should they identify qualified candidates in their own dioceses. Nor will candidates from foreign lands be excluded.

None of this would have proceeded, of course, without explicit approval by the Holy See and explicitly the Congregation for Catholic Education, responsible for supervising seminaries. I turned to America's good friend, former Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United States, Cardinal Pio Laghi, who enthusiastically supported our experiment.

What will be the future of the experiment? God writes straight with crooked lines. Who knows what will happen? We do know, of course, however, that the Holy Spirit breathes where the Holy Spirit will, sometimes in tongues of fire, sometimes in a roaring wind, sometimes in a gentle breeze. Neither deaf nor mute is excluded from his love. If he is giving anyone a vocation to the priesthood, he will make its fulfillment possible. He wasn't called to the priesthood, but Ludwig von Beethoven wrote some of his most profound works after becoming deaf. Pythagoras might have said that Beethoven listened to the "silent music of the spheres" and heard beauty unheard by any other.