Monsignor Thomas Lee Phillips has gone from being a student challenged when learning Latin, a high school teacher and associate pastor to a highly regarded pastor of two area churches for nearly 40 years.
Pope Benedict XVI named him monsignor March 11, 2006, for his distinguished service to the church.
His retirement will be effective July 1, his 79th birthday. He is the last of his 1971 ordination class of 12 to retire.
Growing up in St. Anthony in Gardenville and St. Joseph in Fullerton, Monsignor Phillips credited scouting with preparing him for his life and religious vocation. For 27 years, he was a chaplain to archdiocesan troops with the Boy Scouts of America, and now, since 2020, is chaplain emeritus.
“In high school at Calvert Hall, the Christian Brothers were always after me to consider becoming a priest,” he remembered. “But I was resistant completely. I explained to them that I was actually looking for a career in electronics.”
He was accepted at Jesuit-run Loyola College (now Loyola University Maryland), but he never graduated.
“It was at Loyola that I made my decision that perhaps the Lord wasn’t calling me to be a chemist or an electrical engineer, although I still dabble in both of those,” he said.
He was placed at St. Jerome (Resurrection College) in Kitchner, Ontario. Latin was among his studies.
“But in the course of being at St. Jerome, the church dropped Latin altogether,” he said. “I was freed, because I was never very good at Latin.”
After St. Jerome, he entered Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg where in 1971 he earned his master’s degree in systemic theology. On May 15 that year, he was ordained a priest.
“Father Tom,” as he preferrs to be called, became an associate pastor at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Frederick for four years.
In 1975, he was reassigned to The John Carroll School in Bel Air. In addition to teaching, he volunteered as a chaplain for the state police until 2019.
In 1979, he became the associate director of clergy personnel for nearly seven years.
When Monsignor Phillips became pastor of St. Francis de Sales in Abingdon in 1985, the church’s first pastoral council was formed soon after his arrival.
Then in June of 1997, he was asked to help merge the communities of St. Lawrence and the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Woodlawn, making them the present-day St. Gabriel Parish.
The church was consecrated Nov. 30, 1997. Monsignor Phillips served as pastor for the next 26 years.
Some 951 families from more than 35 countries worship at St. Gabriel today. Many are from North and Central America, West Africa, Philippines, Southeast Asia and Europe.
Monsignor Phillips is the spiritual director of Juan Orlando Beltran, a longtime parishioner who will be ordained a deacon for the archdiocese Oct. 7.
“He’s been awesome, always available to me and very open to the immigrant people,” said Beltran, referring to Monsignor Phillips. “I had a lot of questions and I learned a lot from him. He blessed my heart.”
Kacy Conley, parish council chairwoman at St. Gabriel, said her pastor’s “open and caring shepherding has fostered an environment where all feel welcome to be a part of this community of many cultures with one faith.”
Monsignor Phillips believes “people need to have a voice in the running of their parishes. … And if they follow through on their proposals, then their plans can go through.”
It wasn’t widely known at first that Monsignor Phillips’ beloved black Labrador Bailey died in April due to declining health. Bailey – not to be confused with Archbishop Lori’s golden retriever Bayley – was a friendly fixture at St. Gabriel ever since his arrival in 2013.
Whenever he could, Monsignor Phillips traveled to Ocean City to visit his sister Dorothy Tumminello, now a widow, and to do some fishing and sailing. The voracious reader plans to continue this in retirement, catch up on books he’s been stockpiling and help out in area parishes.
He has fond memories of “being with the people and sharing their joys, helping people to move through the dark days of life, through illnesses and deaths.”
He especially relishes his “spiritual feeding of the Eucharist” and being a part of “fruitful” decisions. He was skeptical, however, when one such decision was to give St. Gabriel’s community center his name.But the voice of the people that he so ardently nurtured won out. Monsignor Thomas L. Phillips Community Center now stands as a lasting testament to the shepherd whom everyone called “Father” and “Monsignor” especially when they did not know where else to turn.
Monsignor Thomas Phillips
Born: July 1, 1944
Home parishes: St. Anthony, Gardenville; St. Joseph, Fullerton
Seminary: Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg
Priestly ordination: May 15, 1971
Assignments: St. John the Evangelist, Frederick, associate pastor (1971-75); The John Carroll School, Bel Air, faculty (1975-79); Catholic Center, associate director of clergy personnel (1979-85); St. Francis de Sales, Abingdon, pastor (1985-97); St. Gabriel, Woodlawn, pastor (1997-2023)
Quote: “People need to have a voice in the running of their parishes. … And if they follow through on their proposals, then their plans can go through.”
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