Fr. Laurence Gallagher, C.Ss.R.

 

Fr. Laurence Gallagher arrived at Corpus Christi as Associate Pastor on July 1, 2008. He comes to us from Dublin Ireland and is the youngest in a family of five siblings.

He was involved in the life of his parish in Ireland while growing up and, after finishing school, he studied Accounting in college and worked at that trade for a while. However he soon felt that, “There was a call within me to try something different and deeper”.

After a time of discernment, he entered the Redemptorist Congregation to train to become a priest. He received degrees in Philosophy and Theology, and then set out for two years of missionary work in the Amazon basin in Brazil. Fr. Laurence says that, “This was two of the greatest years of my life. I worked in a large, sprawling parish and we had responsibility for sixteen churches. Those two years gave me a great appreciation of the importance of cultural and religious diversity.

Fr. Laurence returned to Ireland to earn a Masters Degree in the pastoral care of young people and he took up a position as a High School Chaplin, and for the last few years he became a parish Missioner, which involved presenting a week of faith in different parishes in Ireland.