Unique video introduction by priest

CHATHAM TOWNSHIP  On camera, Father Andrew Dutko, parochial vicar at Corpus Christi Parish here, cannot help but crack a smile thinking about the joys of his priesthood in the Diocese — only a year — which he describes as encouraging the faithful to cultivate a “relationship with God.” The same goes when he remembers his late wife, Barbara, who died in 2011.

“She was absolutely beautiful. I wore her down. It took me seven months. She finally agreed to go out with me,” said Father Dutko, in one part, aptly titled “Barbara,” of a video series on his life and vocation, posted on Corpus Christi’s website at https://corpuschristi.org/welcome-fr-andrew. He met his wife at Sussex County Community Col­lege; she was graduated from a program in 2004 that enabled her to earn a medical degree and law degree with the goal of becoming a geriatric psychiatrist and an elder lawyer. “She still blows me away. When she walked into a room, all eyes were on her. She was so bubbly,” he said.

Over nine videos, Father Dutko takes viewers through the many lifetimes that he has lived in his relatively short 47 years. He served as a U.S. Marine guarding two presidents and working counter-terrorism in Afghanistan, as a high-ranking civilian intelligence officer, as a loving husband of nine years and eventually as a Catholic priest. After all these years, his voice still cracks with emotion as he speaks of Barbara — for the first time publicly as part of this innovative video series designed to introduce him to the Corpus Christi community where he was assigned on June 1.

In his grief, Father Dutko found his vocation as a priest.

“I know that I will not get to meet many of our parishioners during this pandemic so these videos are a good way for them to get to know me,” Father Dutko told The Beacon. The idea for the series, he said, came from Dominic Ambrosio, a Corpus Christi staff member with vast media experience as retired vice president of studio operations for HBO, who filmed an interview with the priest and edited the videos, which each clock in at less than four minutes. “This is my niche. I love to talk with people one-on-one and to tell stories about my life and the blessing of my vocation,” he said.

However, true to his mission as a priest, Father Dutko also tries to give viewers “something actionable” to take way from the videos as he does in his homilies at Mass. In the series, the priest also talks about the most important goal of being Catholic — to have a relationship with God; the role of the parish as a community of believers to encourage each other in that relationship; and how to practice “true prayer” — “taking your thoughts and uniting them with your emotions.” Throughout July and August, Corpus Christi posted a new video on its website each week.

“I would get positive comments from parishioners every week,” said Father Dutko who sat for an hour-long interview in Corpus Christi’s gym near its Resurrection Room.

Father Dutko describes himself as a “normal Jersey boy” from Vernon who attended public school until fifth grade when he transferred to the former Immaculate Con­cep­tion School in Franklin. That’s because he said he was a “troublemaker” and his parents thought that Catholic school might “calm me down.” His family only attended Mass on Christmas and Easter. Nevertheless, he felt his faith grow at Immaculate Conception and later at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta from where he was graduated in 1991.

After high school, Father Dutko joined the Marines where he began attending Mass. From there, “I slowly started to trickle into a relationship with God,” he said.

As a Marine, Father Dutko served as bodyguard for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. After four years, he left and returned to Sussex County to start community college. There, he met Barbara, a former personal trainer to a billionaire in Italy. Later, he worked as independent oversight at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee while Barbara was figuring out her next career move after earning the medical and law degrees. Tragedy struck when on Dec. 26, 2011, “We both went to bed and I woke up.” The cause of her death remains unclear, Father Dutko said.

“I got a job with Northrop Grumman and went back to Afghanistan to basically get myself killed,” said Father Dutko who worked in counter-terrorism. “I was so angry at God at that point — unbelievably angry. If God were sitting next to me, I would have attacked him,” he said.

In Afghanistan, Father Dutko befriended a priest who asked him why he still spoke about God instead of casting him out of his life. The future priest realized that it was because “I love God regardless of how angry I got at him,” even though “after Barbara’s passing, I felt nothing. I still went to church but I did not feel uplifted. I felt abandoned,” he said.

“When everything leaves you in life and there is only God, the choice is pretty simple — to think about a vocation to the priesthood. I realized that — oh — this is what I’m supposed to do,” Father Dutko said.

In the final part of the series, Father Dutko answers a lightening round of Ambrosio’s questions, such as about his favorite word, TV shows and books. At the end, Ambrosio asks him what he would hope God says to him when he arrives in heaven. In a touching moment, the priest answers, “Your wife is waiting.”

The producer of the high-quality project, Ambrosio, pitched Father Dutko the idea for the series, which “presents him as a real person because right now, nobody can get to know him from behind a mask.

“Father Andrew brings different skills and experiences to his ministry as a priest. The series lets parishioners know how privileged they are to have a priest who’s been around the block,” said Ambrosio who noted that the featured priest was “very easy to interview, very open and very funny. He was fascinating,” Ambrosio said.

Father Kevin Corcoran, Corpus Christi’s pastor, knew Father Dutko’s story as a member of the diocesan Vocations Board but did learn new details.

“Father Andrew is a good storyteller. He pulls you into his life. The parishioners have gotten to know him — and his energy, passion and real-world experience — in a quick and effective way,” Father Corcoran said.