On the road again, and again

The Marquette Diocese isn’t the only one whose priests serve multiple parishes and missions. According to a U.S. Catholic article with the humorous title of “Roamin’ Collar,” nearly half the nation’s 20,668 parishes share a pastor. The leader is the Crookston, Minnesota diocese with 94 percent of its clerics covering two or more churches.

The U.P. currently has two priests who have four locations, and seven who serve three. The leaders with five posts are a pair of western U.P. pastors: Fathers Michael Jacobus in Ontonagon and Gracious Pulimoottil of Calumet.

Father Jacobus, a native of Mason, Mich., was ordained in St. Peter Cathedral in 2008 by Bishop Alexander Sample and assisted at Our Lady of Peace in Ironwood for four months before transferring to Ontonagon. 

One of his memorable events was a memorial service for sailor Lowell Valley, who died at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and whose remains
were returned to Ontonagon in 2018. 

His five assignments are:
* Ontonagon: Holy Family parish, whose first church was ordered in 1854 by Bishop Frederic Baraga, a regular visitor to the Lake Superior town.
* Rockland: St. Mary, established in a boarding house in 1849 by Baraga, has a working organ (the oldest still used in the diocese) purchased by Baraga.
* Ewen: Sacred Heart, opened as a Michigamme mission in 1892, it welcomed its first pastor in 1903.
* Bergland: St. Ann, began in a private home as a mission from Ewen, then moved into the school gym; the present building was consecrated in 1963.
* White Pine: St. Jude, established in 1953 in a restaurant, then a school gym (with confessions heard behind a piano), before moving to a new church and rectory in 1955. 

A round trip of 80 miles passes through all five towns. Father Jacobus drives the route alone, listening to the Bible or praying the Rosary. “I like to spend quiet time with God,” he says.

The other “fiver” is Father Gracious Pulimoottil, who came to America in 2018 from a 600-family parish in India, praying after his 2009 ordination that “God would send me to a good parish,” and He did. 

His current Copper Country churches are:
* Calumet: Sacred Heart, whose first pastor came north from Hancock in 1865.
* Calumet: St. Paul the Apostle, a merger of four ethnic parishes (Calumet once had six); the church is stunningly beautiful, on a par with the spectacular St. Joseph in Lake Linden.
* Ahmeek: Our Lady of Peace, constructed in 1928, is open June through September.
* Copper Harbor: Our Lady of the Pines, also open June through September, started in 1953, and is known for the soothing aroma of pine logs.
* Eagle Harbor: Holy Redeemer, the U.P.’s oldest surviving Catholic church and open June through September, was built by Baraga in 1854 on land he bought. A jubilee book from a former Calumet parish noted that Baraga first walked to Eagle Harbor in 1847 and walked or canoed to the area every year.

Father Gracious passes travel time by praying the Rosary or Chaplet, using the drive “like a retreat, quiet and peaceful.” He's seen bear, deer, snowmobiles, and stuck vehicles, but avoided road troubles because “my guardian angel was in front of me.”

These two men are in historic country, following the spirit of which Baraga himself as they tend to their flocks.