Priest uses business experience to aid Church in Holy Land
Franciscan Father Peter Vasko, president of the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land, speaks during a fundraising dinner for the foundation on March 12, 2011, in Indianapolis. (File photo by Sean Gallagher) Click for a larger version.
By Sean Gallagher
Franciscan Father Peter Vasko is a traveler.
Over the past 20 years, this Brooklyn, N.Y.-born priest has crisscrossed the Holy Land in leading approximately 400 pilgrimage groups to the places where Christ lived, died and rose again.
For nearly 15 years, Father Peter, whose ministry is based in Israel, has spent three months each year in the U.S., traveling across the country seeking support for the Church in the Holy Land as president of the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land (FFHL).
“I get tired,” said Father Peter about living so often out of a suitcase. “But it’s on such a high spiritual plane. Travel is a needed part of letting people know what’s going on in the Holy Land.”
Father Peter spoke during a recent trip to Indianapolis about the spiritual journey that led him to the Franciscans in the Holy Land, and the hopes he has for the Church there.
He reflected on how his experience as a fast-rising young adult in the travel industry in the 1970s unexpectedly prepared him for the ministry that has been the focus of his life for the past two decades.
After graduating from The Catholic University of America in Washington, Father Peter worked in marketing and public relations for a company that operated 28 Holiday Inn hotels across the southeastern U.S.
Later, he worked for an Atlanta company that made travel arrangements for the many corporations that had offices there.
He was materially successful—owning two homes, two cars and taking frequent vacations.
“But there was a void in my life,” Father Peter said. “One day, I was in one of my houses and I just said, ‘I have all these things and I feel so empty. What am I here for?’ ”
He then started a spiritual quest to answer that question. After a series of profound experiences in prayer, he felt convinced that God was not only calling him to be a Franciscan, but to join the order’s Custody of the Holy Land, a province based there since the 14th century.
Father Peter was familiar with these friars because of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land that they maintain in Washington, which is adjacent to Catholic University.
He became a novice in the order in 1980, and soon thereafter took his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
“When I went in [Christ’s] tomb—Oh, my God,” he said. “It was such an emotional thing for me, realizing that this was where he resurrected and how unworthy I was to be there.”
Father Peter was eventually ordained a priest in 1987.
“Since that time, I’ve been very happy as a priest,” he said. “I can’t thank God enough for giving me the vocation to become a Franciscan.”
At that point, Father Peter thought he had left behind for good his work in travel and public relations.
For the first five years after his ordination, he was involved in parish ministry in the Holy Land and loved it.
Then his superiors saw that his previous experience could be tapped to help the Church in the Holy Land that continues to struggle to survive.
“They told me, ‘We see that you have this marketing and PR background,’ ” Father Peter said. “I kind of said, ‘Leave me alone!’ But it’s obedience, and the rest is history.”
A few years later, the FFHL was founded and Father Peter began making regular trips to the U.S., often visiting with benefactors and appearing on EWTN, Discovery Channel, BBC, NBC and CBS.
“I go around the United States. I tell the story and the needs [of the Church in the Holy Land],” he said. “And I don’t care if they give or don’t give. But guess what? … The money is coming in only because God is doing that.”
With the financial support gained through donors to the FFHL, Franciscans in the Holy Land operate an array of programs that help young Christians there receive college or vocational educations, and find jobs and housing so they can stay there and keep alive the Church in the place where it was born.
Father Peter sees he and his brother Franciscans as rebuilding the Church there, a task similar to that of St. Francis of Assisi, who physically rebuilt a chapel after a spiritual inspiration from Christ. He only later understood that Christ wanted him to lead a spiritual rebuilding of the Church in the 13th century.
“It’s a Franciscan task to rebuild the Church,” he said. “That’s what I’m doing. I’m a poor instrument in many ways, but he uses poor instruments.
“This is God’s mission. It isn’t my mission.”
He’s inspired in this ministry by the example of the Christians in the Holy Land whose families have lived there for centuries.
“They’re the guardians of Christianity, and they’re still there,” Father Peter said. “I’ve been so impressed with that. I want to alleviate some of their suffering.
“We’re such a minority there. Other people [there] aren’t going to help us.”
But he has found that Catholics across the U.S. are generously supporting their brothers and sisters in faith in the Holy Land. Many of them are inspired to give by taking pilgrimages there led by Father Peter.
“I know that I have a responsibility,” he said. “I want to help them strengthen their spirituality. The Lord wants to do one of three things for them [during a pilgrimage]. He either wants to touch their heart, heal them of something or guide them in something.
“I feel a great responsibility as a Franciscan guide to facilitate this spiritual initiation within their hearts.”
Although being constantly on the go in the Holy Land can be tiring, Father Peter smiles and laughs when reflecting on his busy priestly life and ministry.
He likened it to his days in the business world, and agreed that he feels like he is working in a corporate headquarters with a corner office.
“I’m working for a great boss. His name is God,” Father Peter said. “He’s the best boss I’ve ever had in my life.”
(For more information on the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land, log on to www.ffhl.org.) †
