Father Vaughn Treco, a married former Anglican priest who was ordained to the Catholic priesthood May 3, responded to questions from The Catholic Spirit in an e-mail interview. He was ordained to the papal-approved Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and in this special ministry will serve a small community of former Anglicans who have been worshiping at Holy Family in St. Louis Park. (Click here for more information.)

Q. What is your current Catholic parish?

A. [My wife] Norma and I have been attending Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. When we have been unable to attend together, Norma has attended Mass at Saint Rose of Lima in Roseville.

Q. We have it that Norma works at a Catholic school? True? Where? Teaching?

A. Norma teaches at Pope John Paul II Catholic School in northeast Minneapolis. She was hired on Christmas Day 2014 as the long-term substitute teacher for PJPII’s second grade class, and started her work with the school on Jan. 6. For 10 years, Norma served as one of two second grade teachers at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional School in Woodbridge, Virginia. (Link: http://aquinastars.org)

Q. What brought you to Minnesota?

A. With the encouragement of Bishop [Andrew] Cozzens, we relocated to Minnesota in order to facilitate the process of my ordination as a Catholic priest for the Ordinariate. Norma arrived in Minnesota on Jan. 6, 2015. After spending a month packing, I followed her and arrived in the Twin Cities on Friday, Feb. 6.

Q. Did you have to take any courses at the St. Paul Seminary here to finalize your preparation for ordination?

A. Although not formerly enrolled at the seminary, in the weeks leading up to my ordination, I completed my liturgical formation in the Novus Ordo with Father Thomas Margevicius, instructor of liturgical theology and homiletics. I received similar formation in the Ordinariate Use of the Roman Rite from Father William Brenna, Diocese of Superior (retired). Father Brenna has been assisting the Ordinariate Society of St. Bede the Venerable as it transitioned to the Twin Cities [from St. John’s Church and Abbey in Collegeville].

Q. And, finally, how do you feel about being able to offer the sacraments again, after so many years?

A. Laying down the priesthood in 1999 was perhaps the most disorienting experience of my life. Even though I was confident that the Lord had summoned me to do so, for months, I found myself asking myself over and over, “Who am I?” This question haunted me until Archbishop Lawrence Aloysius Burke, S.J. (deceased), then Archbishop of Nassau, asked me if my sense of call to priesthood had dissipated after I had entered the Catholic Church.

Being able to offer the sacraments again has been as exhilarating as the rush of oxygen into the lungs of a deep-sea diver who has been pushing to the surface of the water after having gone without air for far too long. I can breath again!