By Bridget Spinks
FATHER Tony (Anthony) Vallis, the parish priest of Our Lady of Mercy Girrawheen will be retiring from parish duties on 13 February after serving the Church for 19 years as a priest including the last six at Girrawheen.
More than 500 people came to a farewell celebration coordinated by parishioner Barbara Peters and several volunteers, which was held at Mercy College on 15 January.
Joe Bartucciotto, chairman of Girrawheen’s parish council, said that Fr Tony has left the physical assets of the parish in a better condition than he found them but his greatest impact has been on his beloved parishioners.
“His first comment to the parish community related to the fact that he was a ‘social’ being; not in the sense of partying but in terms of his abiding belief that the face of Christ, the Word made Flesh, is viewed in part through the human dimension,” Joe said.
Although born in India, Fr Vallis was brought up in Burma but came to Australia when he was 22.
He then spent 21 years working in accounting administration and serving various parishes through his involvement on the council or playing the organ, before residing at St Charles’ Seminary for eight months and finally taking up full time seminary studies at St Francis Xavier in Adelaide for six years. He said that being a priest has been ‘bigger than Ben Hur’ compared with what he thought it would be.
“But I’ve just loved every minute of my priesthood; I don’t have any regrets,” he said.
“When you go into priesthood, you just think the priest says Mass and that’s it, and I think people think that too. But it’s anything but; you wear many hats as a priest especially as a parish priest; such as administration, counselling, guiding, spiritual nourishment and pastoral care,” he said.
Fr Vallis was ordained to the priesthood on 7 December 1991 by Archbishop Hickey for the Archdiocese of Perth and was first appointed to Our Lady of Lourdes, Rockingham, which he served as an assistant priest for two years.
He spent the next eight years as chaplain at Royal Perth Hospital and the next six as dean of the Goldfields before finally being appointed parish priest of Girrawheen.
As he enters retirement for medical reasons, Fr Tony described the priesthood as ‘truly being Christ and being on the go’ because instead of an itinerant preacher like Christ was, the priest is based in the parish, he said.
“In this parish, I have seven areas that fall under my care: a high school with some 2,000 students, a primary school with about 500, two nursing homes, plus the calls from the hospitals, all of which are weekly and monthly pastoral care situations. So my day is a full day and if I have any funerals or out calls, that’s an addition,” he said. Looking back on his priesthood, he said he could see many challenging moments such as the decisions he has had to make, as well as the pastoral needs and crisis in the lives of parish families. He said he would miss all of that.
“I’ve had to attend a number of suicides and a number of murders and it is gut wrenching but you go out there and you don’t need to have all the answers,” he said.
“You just need to be there for them and support them as best you can with God’s grace, just allow them to know God is there in those horrible moments of human existence.”
These moments are all very precious, he said, because within that chaos, he was able to bring some light of Christ to the people.
“I think that’s my blessing.”