Father Dan Dorsey—Monticello, Arkansas
A Legacy of Changed Minds and Hearts

Father Dan Dorsey visits with longtime friend Obie Young. She is among the many non-Catholic Arkansans who welcomed the declaration by Monticello's mayor of Sunday, June 26, 1999, as "Father Dan Dorsey Day."

After just three years in the Glenmary mission area of Monticello, Ark., Father Dan Dorsey was named Drew County’s “Man of the Year.” That was in 1993. Like most areas where Glenmary serves, Drew County residents had negative attitudes and misconceptions about Catholics.

But, Father Dan believes, “You can change attitudes simply by being the best possible Christian you can be.” And he has changed opinions about Catholics in Drew County.

Since being assigned in 1990 to pastor St. Mark Church in Monticello and St. Luke Church in Warren, he has served as president of the board of the Drew County United Way and as president of the County Ministerial Association. He was also a part of the start-up committee and president for five years of the Oasis Homeless Shelter.

Through volunteering in the Meals-on-Wheels program, he met Obie Young, a member of the Assembly of God Church. Their friendship is just one example of the changed minds and hearts Father Dan will leave behind in Drew County when he moves to his new home in Cincinnati in August.

“At first Obie’s children did not want a Catholic priest visiting her,” Father Dan recalls. “They feared I would try to convert her.”

Obie told her children the simple truth: Father Dan was the only one bringing her meals. Where was her minister? she asked them.

Father Dan continued to bring Obie meals. Over time, and at her invitation, they began to pray together. Seven years later, Father Dan still visits her—now in a nursing home. And he is a good friend to her children.

“They have asked me to say her funeral when she passes,” he reports with pride. “She even teases them about their initial worries about a Catholic priest bringing their mother meals.”

Father Dan and his associate Father Frank Schenk, an 83-year-old senior member who ministers to the growing Latino community, have seen both Drew County parishes grow. An education wing has been added at St. Mark and a recreation center at St. Luke. Both churches are filled to capacity on Sundays. And Father Frank’s Spanish Mass is now “standing room only.”

“After nine years in the missions I hope I bring a fresh perspective to Council,” he says. Father Dan is the first Glenmarian elected to leadership with a knowledge of Spanish as a second language.

“I have a passion for Hispanic ministry,” he says. Father Dan plans to find ways to continue this ministry through involvement with the Hispanic community in Cincinnati.

Father Dan, a native of St. Louis, Mo., was attending Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tenn., when he first experienced the call to the priesthood. “I thought it would be great to be a priest in the rural South with all of the challenges that brings,” he recalls. So when he began his discernment, friends pointed him to Glenmary.

He made his first oath with Glenmary in 1974 and was ordained in 1978. After ordination Father Dan served as associate pastor of a Glenmary mission in Morehead, Ky. Then from 1983 to 1990, he served in Cincinnati as Glenmary’s director of novices. 

Sherry Knight, a parishioner of St. Mark and Father Dan’s former secretary, summarizes how the entire community feels about him. “There has not been one person of another faith I have met,” she reports, “that has not said something like, ‘I just love that Father Dan,’ or, ‘Ya’ll are so lucky to have such a wonderful pastor.’ I feel my heart swell,” she continues, “and just smile because I know we are all blessed, both Catholics and non-Catholics, for having such an inspiring, incredible and gentle man in our midst.”

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