From the Director
Greetings friends of the missionaries of St. Columban. My name is Father Al Utzig. I’ve been appointed the new Director of the U.S. Region as of St. Columban’s Day – November 23 last year.
All of us are very grateful for your continuing support and I would like to introduce myself to you. I am from Pittsburgh, PA. My education was in our local parish school by the Sisters of Charity, then four years in high school by the de la Salle Brothers. I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971 with a B.S. degree in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering. I got a job as an engineer with Pittsburgh Corning Glass in a small town in northern Pennsylvania, where I worked until 1976. I learned to hunt and trap and hike in the mountains. And those were the early days of things like lay readers, Eucharistic ministers, parish councils, etc., in the Church. Getting involved in those ministries as well as doing my best to teach the Bible to high school sophomores helped me to finally make up my mind that my calling was to be a foreign missionary. It was not an easy choice. I had several girlfriends over those years.
After my first (“Spiritual”) year, I went straight to theology study. In 1978 I was one of the first Columbans to go on the Overseas Training Program, where I joined two other young men, one Australian and one New Zealander, in Korea. That was a very challenging time - the language, the culture. I was in the city of Kwangju in 1980 when there was a popular uprising against the military dictatorship and maybe 2,000 people were killed or disappeared. When I came back to the States to continue my theology studies, I had PTSD, but in those days, nobody understood that. I almost flunked out.
We lived with the people, ate with the people, and worked with the people as day laborers on the crops of neighbors. I learned so much in those years and thank God for letting me have that opportunity.
I was ordained a priest in 1983 and went back to Korea where I worked in parishes, was pastor of two, raised funds to build two new churches, worked with young Christian workers, helped in the formation of new Columban students, both Korean and Filipino, and in my last four years lived with a community of three Columban Sisters and a lay missionary, doing organic farming in a small village. There was a traditional saying there that ‘if you don’t eat your own poop within three years you die’ — the old ways. But now everyone was using chemicals and not recycling compost. We lived with the people, ate with the people, and worked with the people as day laborers on the crops of neighbors. I learned so much in those years and thank God for letting me have that opportunity.
Back in the States I worked helping form young men to become Columban fathers in Chicago, then as hospital chaplain in San Francisco, then in two parishes in Omaha, then in a parish in El Paso, and now, I have been pastor of a parish in Fontana, CA, in the San Bernardino Diocese. Over 90% of the people (over 5000 families) are Hispanic and there are many Filipinos too. I’ve had to learn Spanish and many different customs to be “Church.” This too has been a great blessing to me — different than my Korean experience and different than my Anglo-American experience. I’ve come to appreciate Our Lady of Guadalupe very much and all the many traditions that go with Christmas and Easter and all the church seasons. In the last 12 years we have raised over $7 million to build a new church to replace the original adobe 125-seater built in 1939 and the steel warehouse built in 1999. It is almost complete now. When it has been blessed, I will be moving to Omaha to take up more completely my role as Regional Director for the next three years. Please pray for me and for all Columbans. Thank you.