Phil Negley

Father Skip Negley lasted sixteen days in retirement before the phone rang. He said yes to what came next, and he still jokes that he may hold the record for the shortest retirement on the books.

That yes says a lot about him. He is warm and good-humored, a priest far more interested in serving people than in his own plans. A Missionary of Our Lady of La Salette from Omaha, Nebraska, he spent much of his priesthood as what his community calls a "priest for priests," the one other clergy turned to when the weight of the work got heavy. People describe him not by his doctorate or his years of leadership but by how it feels when he walks into a room. Cardinal DiNardo put it best at Father Skip's fiftieth anniversary of ordination: when a vicar calls, priests get nervous, and when the cardinal calls, they are scared to death, but when Father Skip calls, "you're relieved."

That gift for putting people at ease has followed him everywhere. He led his order across three years and several continents as Provincial Superior, helped open seminaries from Brazil to India, and twice directed the Galveston-Houston office that cared for hundreds of priests. When Blessed Trinity's beloved pastor died, Father Skip prayed with the others, and two days later the call came asking for his help. He traded retirement in Texas for a new adventure in Florida, arriving with a plain belief in renewal: deeper devotion to the Eucharist and reconciliation, the two La Salette charisms he says feed and heal the same soul, and vocations that rise from within the parish. Sixteen days of retirement, it turned out, was all the rest he needed.

The parish he came to is an easy place to love, and it suits him. Tucked into Orlando's Conway neighborhood, Blessed Trinity began in 1962 as a small group of families gathering at the local elementary school and grew into a lively community of more than fifty ministries, with Sunday Masses in English and Spanish and a home for Hispanic and Filipino families alike. It tells newcomers plainly to come as you are, which is more or less how Father Skip meets people too. He felt that same welcome the moment he arrived. "The staff and the people are the most kind and generous, and warm and welcoming," he said. "I walked into a place that is very well run, very good liturgies, very fine people." The way he sees it, his job now is simply to find where he fits and bring a little renewal where it is needed.