A learning experience

Fr. Charters’ 50 years as a priest have been a lesson in adapting

By Bill Brewer

Father Tom Charters has been nominated for the Lumen Christi Award, Catholic Extension Society’s highest honor. It’s fitting recognition for a priest who has served the Catholic faith for more than 50 years.

Father Charters is marking his fifth decade in the priesthood this year, and as the Glenmary Home Missioners priest looks back, he’s filled with much gratitude, many good memories—and some heartbreak—for his time as a priest with the Glenmary order.

Ordination anniversaries are difficult for a priest to keep to himself, but that doesn’t mean Father Charters didn’t try.

The pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Erwin, who is known for his humility and a personal preference to be “behind the scenes,” only alerted his congregation to the milestone on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, when they noticed photographers taking photos during Mass.

Father Charters was ordained on May 17, 1975, at Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Cincinnati. And his decision to become a religious-order priest with the Glenmary Home Missioners was both intentional and unintentional.

“I wanted to be a missionary because of the influence of a nun during my eighth grade. She had been a missionary to China. So, I always thought about being a missionary, but I couldn’t learn the languages. Glenmary is a missionary community serving right here in the United States. You speak English … until 25 years later,” Father Charters shared.

Father Charters is enjoying the irony and challenge that in the past 25 years Hispanic communities are growing exponentially in U.S. Catholic parishes and have become vital to churches. That means he is learning to speak Spanish on the job because St. Michael the Archangel Masses are bilingual.

“As you saw in the Mass, I try to speak Spanish. We celebrate Mass in Spanish, and there is some broken Spanish. I don’t speak it, although I’ve tried to learn it. But every time I had classes, I would get assigned where it wasn’t used, so I lost what little I had,” he explained.

But don’t let Father Charters’ broken Spanish fool you. The parish’s Spanish-speaking members are drawn to the Glenmary priest and are quite fond of him as he celebrates Mass with the help of a member who interprets for him.

Father Charters was born on Feb. 20, 1949, in Dayton, Ohio, to Ralph and Anne Charters and is the youngest of their three sons. The oldest son is Jim, who is seven years older than Father Charters, and the middle son is Jack, who is five years older.

And as with virtually every boy born into the Catholic faith, he thought about becoming a priest as a young child, especially in elementary school when the question was posed: Who has ever thought about becoming a priest?

“I really got serious about it in high school. My freshman year, I was educated by the Brothers of Mary, the Marianist Brothers of Dayton, Ohio. I was at Chaminade High School, and they had a vocations day my freshman year. They had a book with the different religious communities, and one of them was the Glenmary Home Missioners,” Father Charters said.

He had heard of the Glenmarys from a priest who visited his parish when Father Charters was about 12 years old and spoke about “No Priest Land USA,” a model for evangelization created by Glenmary founder Father William Howard, who developed a map of mission need in the United States. At the time, about 100 years ago, there were more than 1,000 counties in the United States without a resident priest.

As a high-school senior, Father Charters said a teacher encouraged him to pursue the Glenmary Home Missioners.

“During my senior year, I really got to thinking, ‘What do I want to do?’ My history teacher, who was a layman, said Glenmary works in the fields. They work in all these agricultural areas. You have to know something about farming. So, I talked to him about it, and he said, ‘Give it a try,’” the 76-year-old priest recalled.

“There was no knowledge of farming involved in Glenmary at all,” Father Charters said laughing five decades later. “But it’s been a joy.”

He noted that often in life the image of what something appears to be differs from the reality of what it actually is.

He joined Glenmary at age 18 when he was just out of high school. He enrolled in the order’s college program at Maryknoll College in Glen Ellyn, Ill. After completing two years at Maryknoll, Glenmary sent him to Loyola of the South University in New Orleans, where he graduated and began his novitiate year in Cincinnati.

He then was assigned to St. Louis University, where he received a master’s degree in divinity.

“That’s where we educated our men,” he said.

Father Charters believes his most recent assignment in East Tennessee’s Unicoi County is the culmination of all his assignments.

The faith communities he has previously served have been in Kentucky, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia, and West Virginia.

“It’s like Unicoi County here is the comprehensive exam because everything that I dreamed of as a missionary has come at this present assignment. I didn’t even have paper clips when I came here. I had to start with everything,” Father Charters said. “And that is my dream. You are going to go to the Appalachian Mountains. Here is the Appalachian Mountains. It was to serve people in a rural area. It has expanded as the Church has expanded in the United States, with the Hispanic community.”

And just as St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Erwin has been a comprehensive exam for Father Charters, his priesthood has been an overarching education.

“These 50 years have been constantly learning new things every year. New ways of adapting. That’s the key thing I find as a missionary priest is you have to adapt. And I have had to adapt a lot. Fifty years has been a lot of adaptation. It’s been beautiful adaptation. And it’s been challenging at times,” he observed.

He noted that it isn’t just languages that he has had to adapt to. Cultures have been another significant adaptation for him.

“The cultural thing is different. Appalachian culture is different than growing up in Dayton, Ohio. And Texas culture when I served there, and Arkansas culture. Is there any difference in adapting to cultures, meeting new people, new situations, things I never dreamed of?” he shared.

“I never dreamed I would be working with undoing racism for four and a half years in Kentucky. I never knew I would be dealing with a miners’ strike in Virginia, or starting a parish that is basically almost 90 percent Hispanic, Spanish-speaking, here in Erwin. You just have to say, ‘Lord, you put me here. It is in Your hands. I’m only a conduit which you are working through. I will do the best I can, but it is in Your hands,’” Father Charters said.

The Glenmary priest first arrived in Unicoi County on Sept. 1, 2011. He had no building to use for Mass or offices, and he had no supplies.

“I put an ad in the newspaper saying we are starting a Catholic church. Anyone interested meet at the senior center. We had 43 people show up. One said he was Baptist and was just there to support us. Six years later, I presided at his funeral. He remained Baptist, but he wanted me to do his funeral,” Father Charters recalled.

That encounter speaks volumes about Father Charters’ evangelization in the Unicoi County area of upper East Tennessee. While his focus has been on establishing a Catholic church in the county, he also has established strong ties in the larger, non-Catholic community.

As the Glenmary mission church in Unicoi County began to take root, Masses were held in temporary quarters, including the Elks Club and the National Guard Armory. An Erwin house would then become home, where Church offices were located on the upper floor and Masses were celebrated in the basement. For well-attended Masses like Easter, the garage doors were opened, and seating spilled out onto the driveway.

The roots of St. Michael the Archangel Parish he has cultivated now run deep and are strong. So strong, in fact, that St. Michael was designated a central community relief center following the Hurricane Helene flooding last September.

And Father Charters is welcome at the Unicoi County ministerial association made up of different faith communities in the county.

During his tenure in Erwin, Father Charters has been blessed by the assistance of a Glenmary lay missionary, Kathy O’Brien, who has served as director of religious education and has assisted Father Charters with the Hispanic community.

Ms. O’Brien also has been involved in the greater Unicoi community.

Father Charters believes the parish is firmly anchored not only in the Diocese of Knoxville but in upper East Tennessee, too.

He credits his family for the deep roots in his faith. It’s a love that reaches from the Holy Spirit through the familial village that raised him.

“The best way would be to say that the seed of the Father’s Word, that is His love, which was sown within me at baptism, found very fertile soil in which to grow. That seed was nurtured and encouraged to develop within a loving atmosphere. The love I received from and shared with my dad, mom, Aunt Louise, my two brothers, and all my relatives was the love which enabled me to freely respond ‘Yes’ to the Father as He called to me,” Father Charters told the Glenmary Home Missioners when they asked how he could best describe his life.

He cites the influence of his immediate and extended family in his formation, and he refers to them as an integral part of his life.

“Through their sharing love and concern for me and for each other, I have learned to become sensitive to the Father’s calling. As I look back over the 18 years that preceded my joining Glenmary, I am keenly aware of the Father’s love speaking through my family and relatives,” he shared with his religious order only a few weeks before his May 1975 ordination.

“For me, the Father’s love was an invitation to the priesthood. His love spoke of priesthood with the force of a gentle wind,” he added.

Father Charters’ reflection just prior to his ordination can serve as a guidepost for others considering a vocation to religious life.

“As I look toward the future, it is my desire to continue to respond to the Father’s love as revealed in His Son, Jesus, and to be open to various ways in which the Spirit leads me to proclaim that love. What drew me to Glenmary and the priesthood was the Father’s love, and now it is that same love that calls me forth to go out to others and share with them as to how the Father’s love is deep within them. The Gospel message is a proclamation of the Father’s love for each of us, and it is this message I desire to share with others,” he said.

As he now reflects on his five decades as a priest, Father Charters is in a veteran position to offer wisdom and counsel to anyone considering a religious vocation.

“I would say be open to the Holy Spirit. Be open to adapting to new things that you have never dreamed of in your life. And to be open also to challenges that you think you can’t do. Well, you can if you let the Holy Spirit lead you,” Father Charters advised.

He said he can reel off story after story about challenges he didn’t believe he could handle but he did.

“You let the Spirit lead you. It’s in God’s hands. I would also say always be open to serving the people. The people always come first. Always in my ministry the people come first,” he said. “Come to serve, not to be served. I can’t emphasize that enough.”

He also had a stern warning to those looking to serve in a missionary area who are concerned about numbers—how many members, how many youth, how many demographic groups, etc.

“If you think, well, ‘I’m looking for numbers like where I came from,’ then don’t come. Don’t look for numbers. Don’t even look for success. Just be present,” he also advised.

He followed that up by encouraging future priests and women religious not only to be present but also to “sit with people.”

“That is so important: to be with them, to sit with them, and to listen to them,” he said.

He noted that it can take a few years for a pastor, a priest, or a Sister to be accepted in a community. But that “ministry of presence” often bears fruit.

“Last September is an example of that. That was when the flood hit. We jumped in and did a lot of relief work. We continue to help out, but it’s a lot less now fortunately,” he said.

The disaster also serves as heartache for Father Charters and the St. Michael the Archangel community. Several members of the parish died in the historic storm.

He shared that years before the devastating 2024 flood, he was in Walmart and a woman he did not know approached him and said, “It’s a blessing that the Catholic church is here. Thank you.”

“She wasn’t Catholic. But her response was, ‘Thank you for being here.’ So apparently, we were making an impact on the area unbeknownst to us in a good sense,” he said.

Those subtle successes are uplifting for his vocation and his ministry.

“There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I wouldn’t change anything. There just have been so many experiences in my life that have been so grace-filled that I would never have had had I not been a priest,” Father Charters said.

And he would do it all over again, but …

“I would change some things,” he pointed out as he laughed. “I would learn Spanish. They wouldn’t let us learn Spanish in college. They made us learn French. I learned enough French that I could get through grad school. I could read books in French in grad school. But if I had the background in Spanish that I did in French, that would have been wonderful.”

But as he thought about it, he reconsidered his statement and withdrew his regret.

“But you know, if I had learned Spanish, it would have been a different ministry. There would have been two separate communities here at St. Michael the Archangel. I could possibly have decided that we will have a Spanish Mass here and an English Mass over there,” he reasoned.

“Now, I tell them that since I don’t speak Spanish, I need you to help me, and we have to do this together. Otherwise, we would have two separate communities,” he pointed out.

When asked what he might be doing had he not been a priest, Father Charters quickly noted that he would have been a teacher, although an uncle he was fond of told him he would make a very good salesman.

As Father Charters continues to evangelize in a part of the world where there aren’t many Catholics, possessing the qualities of a teacher and a salesman has been an advantage.

Ms. O’Brien, who has been a Glenmary lay missionary for 50 years, never worked with Father Charters prior to St. Michael the Archangel Parish.

She joined the Erwin parish in 2012.

She said with a hint of pride and a dash of amusement that Father Charters didn’t want to work with anyone else but her as he established the Unicoi County church.

Although they had not worked together, they knew each other from leading a Glenmary retreat together in Texas.

She began with Glenmary in the summer of 1971 as a volunteer missionary in Mississippi. She also served in Ohio and Texas and in Pulaski, Tenn.

She has served more in Tennessee than in any other state where Glenmary ministers.

And while she is officially retired as a Glenmary lay missionary, she continues to assist the order in its evangelization efforts.

Ms. O’Brien developed a reputation with the Glenmary Home Missioners as being able to work with a variety of people, even those who are opposites.

“He (Father Charters) has been the easiest to work with of anybody. He is very respectful to a woman doing things and to ideas and doing things,” she said. “He is a real missionary and a real good priest. I think anybody here would say that.”

Ms. O’Brien explained that St. Michael the Archangel was the first Glenmary community she has helped start.

“This is the first one I’ve worked with starting from scratch. I’m usually getting them ready to go to the diocese. This one may be ready to do that one day because it has grown fast. At the first Communion Mass, Father Charters will tell you, we had 256 in attendance on Sunday morning. We had 23 kids in the first Communion class,” she said.

Ms. O’Brien noted that she assists Father Charters in another way: she speaks Spanish and leads classes at St. Michael the Archangel in Spanish.

St. Michael the Archangel parishioner Lorena Reynoso has succeeded Ms. O’Brien as the parish’s director of religious education. Other parishioners also are taking on leadership roles in the parish.

“Our people are stepping up and they are feeling comfortable doing it. I told them my job is to start things, get them going, and then turn it over. We’ve been blessed with good people,” Ms. O’Brien said.

In discussing Father Charters’ ministry in Unicoi County and the role of the Glenmary Home Missioners in building and supporting a faith community, Ms. O’Brien pointed out that the major challenge for St. Michael the Archangel is sustaining and growing the financial footprint.

“The biggest lack we have is money. We are working with the working poor,” she said, noting that St. Michael the Archangel is stronger than many parishes she has worked in.

Ms. O’Brien lamented the toll that COVID-19 took on the parish. In addition to keeping people away during the height of the coronavirus, it suspended many parish youth activities, which had been well-attended.

“There is a miracle happening now. And I am enjoying it. The young adults are coming back. They are getting involved. They are leading the youth. They’re having babies, and they want these things for their kids. So, there is a return of the 20-somethings and the 30-somethings,” she pointed out.

Ms. O’Brien credits Father Charters for leading the Glenmary team that has established something special in upper East Tennessee.

“I’ve never seen a place develop like this in Glenmary. Not like this. Developing totally in the time it has taken and how solidly it has been built. It’s pretty good,” she said. “The numbers. Everything here has just exploded.”

And on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, Ms. O’Brien could see the Holy Spirit’s presence at St. Michael the Archangel.

“On Pentecost, you can see that the Spirit is working in this place,” she said. “It’s been the work of the Spirit truly. The Spirit has worked here. Father Charters has had a group here called Food & Faith. St. Michael is always food and faith. There is always food, and there is always faith. And that’s a plus because it builds community.”