Fr. Randall Fogle ordained to serve the first Ordinariate parish in Dallas

DENISON, Texas - Randall Fogle may be shy to call himself a pioneer, but the newly ordained Catholic priest is undoubtedly one of the trailblazers for the Ordinariate in Texas.

He and more than a dozen former members of Christ Our Savior Anglican Church were together received into the Catholic Church in March 2015, when they officially became the parish community of St. Michael and All Angels Catholic Church — the first Ordinariate parish within the geographical boundaries of the Diocese of Dallas.

When Pope Benedict XVI opened the door for former Anglicans to come into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2009, Father Fogle said he had “no doubt” that it was a road worth traveling.

“With prayer, perseverance and the assistance of the Ordinary of the Chair of St. Peter and the wonderful people of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Denison, God has made a way,” Fogle said, referring to the diocesan parish where he and others from St. Michael and All Angels attended Mass and received faith formation in preparation for their reception into the Church.

On Aug. 30, Father Fogle completed the next step in his ministerial journey in the Church, when he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood by Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas. Msgr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, the Ordinariate’s ordinary, was present at Father Fogle’s priesthood ordination. (Auxiliary Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of Dallas ordained Father Fogle to the transitional diaconate on Aug. 29.)

As a priest of the Ordinariate, Father Fogle will continue to serve the parish community of St. Michael and All Angels.

Father Fogle entered the seminary for the Anglican Diocese of Missouri Valley in 2005. He served the Anglican community of Christ Our Savior in Denison for a decade, and previously worked as a chaplain for the Denison Police Department. But during those years of serving the people of Denison, he — like the Ordinariate’s other newly ordained priests — increasingly found himself desiring to be in union with Rome. He began to see full reception into the Catholic Church as the natural, next step in his faith journey.

“With the release of Anglicanorum Coetibus by Pope Benedict XVI, I wanted to become a Catholic with Anglican traditions,” he said. “The Holy Father made it possible for traditional Anglicans to ‘come home.’”

Father Fogle and his wife, Patty, have five children and 11 grandchildren.

Father Fogle said he used to tell his children that the things worth having in life do not always come easy — a lesson, he said, that he’s practiced along his path to becoming Catholic. “If you read the stories of the saints and the Church fathers and the apostles, no one really had it easy,” Father Fogle said, with a chuckle. “It has been quite the journey, but never once did I think I would turn away from this opportunity, because I wanted to belong to Mother Church.”