Ginny and Gene Ragghianti display a stole a parishioner hand made for Gene when he was a Catholic priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Hope in Chattanooga. He left the priesthood in 1974, and he and Ginny were married shortly thereafter.
Gene Ragghianti holds a chalice that he used when he was a priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the late 1960s.ON POPE FRANCIS”I’m excited about Pope Francis. I think he’s figured it out. I think he removes barriers [of issues other than loving your neighbor] for people to relate to him.”– Gene RagghiantiON PRIESTLY MARRIAGE”I think [the Catholic Church will] have married priests before we have ordained women. I would recommend it. Being married has nothing to do with [the priesthood]. But the wife of a married priest has to have a vocation. With a pastor in his ministry, a parish comes before his family, and that could be hairy.”– Gene Ragghianti
Gene Ragghianti didn’t know what to expect in a seminary high school, but he certainly didn’t predict hazing by toilet swirly, Swiss cheese newspapers (with the suggestive stories excised) and an obscenity-spewing priest/teacher.
“I thought it would be sedate,” the Chattanooga resident says of his decision to attend — at age 13 — St. Charles College in Catonsville, Md. “I thought every waking moment would be solemn. I found, heck, it was like any other high school.”
But the experiences Ragghianti had in three seminaries over the next 10 years — plus another seven years as a priest — would form the backbone of his life.
“It’s who I am today,” he says. “It’s informed my world vision.”