Most people consider Father Kevin Reilly of St. Patrick’s Church in Mystic to be ex-military, especially since the U.S. Navy submarine base is just 10 miles away in Groton.
Tall and muscular, he cuts an imposing figure in this coastal city known for its quaint colonial atmosphere and pizza. Parishioners say his baritone voice resonates from the lectern during Mass, and his homilies almost always touch on practical elements of spiritual discipline, especially the need for regular confession.
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
The 55-year-old priest, who has been at St. Patrick’s Church for 14 years, developed different disciplines before embracing the priesthood: as a doorman and waiter in Washington DC, and later in San Francisco.
After a youth and adulthood filled with turbulence, he received a vision of the face of Christ that sent him on the path to the priesthood. It is now a beacon for young families with young children in a geographic region (New England) that has seen a steady decline in Catholic communicants in recent decades.
An unlikely calling
After a brief stint working on Capitol Hill after graduating from Georgetown in the early 1990s, Reilly returned to the world of bartending and music in Washington, DC, something he had already done in college. They paid better, according to Reilly, and allowed him free drinks. He also had no shortage of girlfriends.
“I got to a point where I had become a model for what the culture was selling,” the priest recalled in a recent homily. “Everyone told me how wonderful my life was. I only worked three or four days a week. I made a lot of money. I basically got paid to do what people did on their day off. And yet I “I felt very miserable.”
He decided a change of scenery was necessary, so he moved to San Francisco, where some friends were getting rich selling computers. He got a job waiting tables and a girlfriend and headed west. But, as often happens, the move made no difference to his spiritual life.
It was then that Reilly decided to open a book about the Blessed Virgin Mary that his mother had given him years before.
The book altered the course of his life. As he read it, he had a vision of Jesus’ face and sat down to contemplate it. It could have been minutes or hours, he doesn’t know.
“There were tears rolling down his cheeks,” the priest said. “And then he showed me this amazing saint, greater than any other person who ever lived. And I was amazed by this person. Then I started to realize it was me. That was what God wanted me to be. At that moment, I realized that the tears streaming down her face were for me. “God was crying for the damage I had inflicted on myself,” he added.
The experience transformed him and put him on the path to the priesthood. In the homily, he described the feeling of being guided by the Blessed Mother to Jesus by the hand. The Virgin told him that the reason why he had not been able to find happiness in the world was because he had been created to be a priest.
Reilly began attending Mass every day, which was difficult because the bar he worked at on Capitol Hill didn’t close until 3 a.m. He cried every time the priest raised the Host because it took him back to the moment of his vision. For a tough guy, as he describes himself, this was another obstacle to showing up every day.
“A tough guy can’t be seen that way,” he said. “It was a big church, at least, and I could hide in the back with the Capitol police,” he added.
But Reilly continued to draw closer to the Lord and his calling. He was ordained in the Diocese of Norwich in May 2003 and in 2011 was appointed parish priest of St Patrick’s, which is close to the town where he grew up and where his parents still live. He’s been there for 14 years.
Matthew Farrell, a 43-year-old father of two, said what makes St. Patrick’s a special place are Father Reilly’s homilies, which focus on a message against the world and challenge the faithful to be saints
“He tells it like it is,” Farrell told the National Catholic Register. “It challenges me in areas where I need to be challenged. I listen to what I need to hear each week, not what I want to hear. He cares deeply about the spiritual growth of parishioners. Plus, the church is full every week, with many young families and everyone sings!”
A magnet for young families
Catholicism in the Northeast has been in decline for decades, and Father Reilly’s home state of Connecticut has been no exception. Pew’s latest study of religious affiliation in the country showed a decline in Catholics in the Northeast from 36% in 2009 to 27% in 2019. Stories of church closings and mergers due to aging parishioners and disaffiliation have been rampant ever since.
And yet, attendance at St. Patrick’s Church, particularly among young families with young children, is booming.
All signs indicate continued growth. In 2024 alone, the small town parish celebrated more than 60 baptisms and 30 students applied to be altar servers.
Back to basics
Despite the shift from tending bar to tending a flock, Father Reilly has maintained his habit of bringing order to chaos, even if it means saying things people don’t want to hear. “I love you all,” he often repeats during his homilies. “So I need to tell you what you need to know. Otherwise, one day I will have to answer for it.”
Two new stained glass windows have been installed in the parish in 2024 that resemble the original ones from 1870. On one side a girl is depicted kneeling before a confessional, while Jesus sits listening to her. The other shows Christ consecrating the Eucharist at the Last Supper.
Father Reilly chose these images because he frequently reminds parishioners that Confession and the Eucharist are “the two wings that lift us to heaven.”
For Faith Carpenter, a parishioner mother of six, it is clear that this message is responsible for attracting so many young families back to the Church.
“The lines for confession are getting longer, so I know others are starting to hear the message,” he said. “There really is something special at play here in this little parish,” he said.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.
Peter Laffin
Peter Laffin is a staff writer for the National Catholic Register and a contributor to the Washington Examiner. His work has appeared in The Catholic Herald, The Catholic Thing, and RealClearPolitics.