'It has really been something'
ASHEBORO — For a man who once thought he wanted to be doctor, the past 35 years serving as a priest have given Father Michael Klepacki an opportunity to bring healing of a spiritual kind to men and women around the globe.
It has been quite an adventure for this Asheboro native and former parishioner at St. Joseph Church who was ordained to the priesthood in the Diocese of Charlotte at St. Joseph Church on Holy Thursday in 1978 by then Bishop Michael F. Begley.
Father Klepacki began his priestly ministry at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro, then served as pastor in Spruce Pine, Burnsville and Linville before moving to St. Joan of Arc Church in Asheville, where he spent another six years. Then his vocation took him out of the diocese: he became a chaplain with the U.S. Navy.
For 22 years he traveled the world with the Navy and the Marines – going to Japan, the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Spain, Turkey, Greece, the Persian Gulf and Guam – as well as serving at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, on the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, on the USS Bataan aircraft carrier in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Va.
"We'd get on the helicopters (from the USS Baton after Hurricane Katrina) and fly all day and all evening into New Orleans the first six weeks after the hurricane," he recalls. "That was terrible ... I'm a critical instant stress debriefer, and I would fly on the missions and at night I would debrief all the flight crews and the rescue squads."
During his military career Father Klepacki also took helicopters to go from ship to ship to celebrate Mass for the men and women in uniform. And he often slept on the ground just like the troops serving both at home and overseas.
"Sleeping on the ground on a rock at Camp Lejuene is the same as sleeping on the ground in Romania," Father Klepacki jokes as he fondly remembers his military service.
He also headed up a new office at the Navy, serving as the commanding officer of a fleet ministry program, training and assigning 22 chaplains to ships and battle groups for the deployed and enlisted religious programs.
His last overseas appointment took him to Guam, where he was the force chaplain for the Naval region there.
Father Klepacki is back in the Charlotte diocese now, filling in at parishes all over the western half of North Carolina and doing something he says he's always wanted to do: helping out his brother priests.
"It's so good to be back home! I've always had a desire to be a priest for priests somehow. So what I do is cover parishes when the priests need to get away, when they're sick, so every weekend I am usually somewhere different."
He says he enjoys meeting parishioners at the diverse parishes he visits.
"I get to see so many people, which is great! It's neat – it's like having multiple parishes."
Father Klepacki likes remaining active and being a help to other priests.
He also offers a bit of advice for the laity and also for men discerning a call to the priesthood:
"If you see someone who you think might have a vocation, bring it up with them," he says. That's what happened to him, when he switched from eyeing a medical career to a priestly vocation after a Baptist preacher once encouraged him to pursue the priesthood if he was feeling called to it.
He adds, "And if you are a man who feels you may have a vocation, seek out a priest you feel comfortable with. See what they do. Take a trip to a seminary. Find someone you can talk to. Don't keep it inside."
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter