By Katie Vasquez
For five years Father Andrew Dutko has served in the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey. But, he says once upon a time he was on a different path of service.
Throughout most of his adult life Fr. Andrew was in the Marine Corps. He later met the love of his life when he went back to school for mathematics.
“It took me several months, but I finally wore her down and she agreed to go on a date with me,” he tells Currents News of his wife Barbara. They were married for nine years before the unspeakable happened.
“We went to bed on December 26th, I woke up” he recalls. Barbara, however, did not.
Fr. Andrew’s grief turned into anger at God. In his sadness, he went to work as a military contractor in Afghanistan and stopped attending Mass for a month.
“I was walking around in the middle of the night shouting the rosary, just just hoping that someone would kill me,” he explains. This was until an encounter with a Navy chaplain helped Fr. Andrew realize his calling.
“I realized that God was the only thing I still found valuable, so I couldn’t throw him out of my life,” he says. Now, Fr. Andrew is hoping to combine both his lives of service as he prepares to become a Navy chaplain himself.
The New Jersey priest wants to be there for the men and women who serve this country, especially when considering that as of 2021, 17 veterans and active military committed suicide per day in the U.S.
He asks, “Could just by me walking around the ship like and bringing Jesus to them, just in conversation, could that have made a difference?”
While he asks this question, knows with certainty that he has a guardian angel helping him along the way.
“I’m trying to live like the person she fell in love with,” he says when reflecting on the memories he has of his wife. “But this is just one more step in fulfilling that, making her proud from heaven.”
Fr. Andrew heads off for training on January 12, 2025, and expects to be offering pastoral care to military members by the spring.
His service comes at a crucial time – the U.S. military is in dire need of chaplains. The Archdiocese for the Military Services U.S.A. says that while 25% of the U.S. Armed Forces are Catholic, Catholic priests only make up 7% of chaplains.
Currently, just 196 priests are providing pastoral care for 300,00 men and women in uniform. The Archdiocese says this gap has been growing since aging priests are retiring faster than they can be replaced.