Father Pascal
Father Pascal Nduka, the new associate pastor at St. Mary Catholic Church in Ireland and Precious Blood Church in Jasper, was 18 years old when God called him to serve.
It wasn’t a decision he had to make. He was just following instructions. Father Pascal left his secondary school and went straight to the St. Peter and Paul Seminary in Ibadan, Nigeria. He served at the mission for nine years before he was ordained a minister at the age of 28.
His bishop at the time was visiting a friend who was a patient at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. It was there the bishop met the then-bishop of the Indianapolis Diocese, who asked for three priests to join his ranks. Father Pascal was one of them.
“That is the life of a priest,” Father Pascal, 45, explained, comparing field assignments to that of a soldier in the military. “When we take our vows, we pledge our obedience to our bishop. We are at your service. We will go.”
When Father Pascal flew to the United States for the first time in 2006 to join his new diocese, culture shock quickly set in. All the Nigerian knew about his new land was what he had seen in movies or read in books. The first jolt he experienced was walking onto an airplane in Detroit and realizing he was the only black man flying to Indianapolis. The second shock: the late October cold.
“In Nigeria, I was always in the majority. That flight was the first time in my life I was in the minority,” Father Pascal said Monday in his office at St. Mary. “And coming from a warm climate — no, a hot climate — it was very, very different for me.”
Father Pascal spent six months at St. Anthony Holy Trinity on Indy’s west side before being transferred to St. Anthony near Batesville in the southeastern section of the state. He spent six years there and when his contract expired, he applied to shift to the Evansville Diocese. He was accepted and Bishop Charles Thompson sent him to Dubois County, where he works with Father Gary Kaiser.
“When the bishop told me I would be working here, I didn’t really know much about the Jasper area. The only thing I heard was ‘Oh, it is a German settlement’ but that made me feel at home,” he said, having spent six years in a similar setting in Batesville.
Father Pascal arrived at Father Gary’s home in Jasper, where he now resides, the day after Thanksgiving. Father Gary immediately began priming Father Pascal on the culture of Dubois County, explaining how people react to certain things, what they like and what they don’t like, preventing Father Pascal from having to learn from mistakes. He’s careful not to offend.
“Father Gary has been a friend and a brother. I think he has really gone out of his way to make things OK for me. I see a big difference in that from where I was before,” Father Pascal said. “He made a very soft landing pad for me.”
Father Pascal said he finds great fulfillment assisting Father Gary deliver God’s word and will continue to do so as long his bishop requires.
“In my nearly 100 days here, I’ve never sat back and said, ‘Oh God, why did you put me here?’ I say, ‘God, thank you. I think you really prepared this place for me.’”
The kind welcome he’s received, Father Pascal said, has been overwhelming at times. “Maybe it was (because I got here) during Christmas time,” he joked, “but everyone has been so nice to me.”
Father Gary says Father Pascal has energized the community and is not surprised parishioners like the newcomer. “His great knowledge and love for Scripture is evident every day,” Father Gary said. “He is humble, compassionate, spirit-filled and works great with the young and the old. It’s been a great gift to our parishioners to learn more about other cultures, too.”
Father Gary recalled that, during rehearsal for the Christmas pageant at Precious Blood, Father Pascal was offering a blessing for the children and, in a move to increase their energy, urged them to yell “Hip, hip, hooray!”
“Then he calmed them down and simply said, ‘Children, children.’ He was getting their attention, (and called them) ‘my friends of Jesus,’” Father Gary recalled Father Pascal saying.
“You should have seen the eyes of the parents watching this. It was a special moment.”
It’s no surprise to Father Gary that Father Pascal has been embraced. Father Pascal is a jovial man. He uses two hands when shaking hands. He makes eye contact when speaking. He calls people “my dear friend” with a genuine touch. He walks departing visitors to the door and always says goodbye. To him, that’s all normal; he believes it’s his duty to serve in any way he can.
“I think the most important thing is finding fulfillment in what you are doing.” Father Pascal said. “I find great, great, great, great, great fulfillment here. With capital letters.”
He makes a point of visiting friends and family once a year, making the trek back to his hometown of Asaba, Nigeria’s capitol of the Delta State. “I’ve never missed it. I don’t intend to miss it,” Father Pascal said smiling. Video chat programs have minimized the distance, but seeing family in person — and experiencing the heat — re-energizes him.
Many of his friends schedule their weddings during his vacation so he can officiate the ceremony. “A priest is always a priest, whether he is here or on vacation,” he said. “Vacation is just a geographical term.”
Still, he finds the longer he stays, the more his mind wanders back to Indiana. “Sometimes you start missing your friends here,” he said, “and you just want to get back to
them.”
This feature originally appeared in the March 6 edition of the Dubois County (Ind.) Herald. The Message thanks The Herald for permission to reprint it.
