Jeff Percell This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. Silicon Valley Community Newspapers - The Sunnyvale Sun - Cover Story

   www.community-newspapers.com/a - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/31/2007   Last Visited: 2/11/2007

   "My other life," says Percell.
   ...
   Percell wore vestments for the wedding and a tuxedo for the reception.
   
   Percell talks about his family--his wife, his children and grandchildren--in his homilies. When he celebrates Mass, he loves looking out and seeing his daughter in the congregation. His grandchildren say, "There's Grandpa."
   
   Many have wondered how this can be.
   
   "There's never been a prohibition against widowers becoming ordained," said Percell. "In the eyes of the church, marriage ends at death."
   
   In 1980 the first widowed priest was ordained in San Jose. In 2005 there were four in the San Jose Diocese of 100 priests.
   
   Lisa and Jeff Percell were 12 and 11 in 1986 when their parents bought their house in Sunnyvale, moving from a nearby home in west San Jose.
   
   Lisa and Jeff Percell were 12 and 11 in 1986 when their parents bought their house in Sunnyvale, moving from a nearby home in West San Jose.
   
   "Sunnyvale was our primary social sphere," Percell said. The children participated in church youth activities and in gymnastics at the Sunnyvale Community Center.
   
   "Sunnyvale offered a great quality of life," Percell said.
   ...
   "We were both seen as ministers," Percell said.
   ...
   Percell said he had thoughts of the priesthood in his heart for most of his life. As a child ,when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always answered, "A priest."
   
   He grew up in San Francisco, attended parochial schools, and then seminary. He realized he wanted to be a priest, but not a single man. So he left the seminary and transferred to the University of California at Berkeley to finish his degree.
   
   Eight months later he was the best man in a wedding.
   ...
   "It's a fairy-tale story," Percell said.
   ...
   "I didn't lure her away from the religious life," Percell said. "We found God in each other."
   
   The couple married in 1970. Percell earned a doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Arizona. They returned to the Bay Area where Percell began work for San Mateo County as a clinical psychologist within the criminal justice system.
   ...
   "People brought us dinner four nights a week for eight months," Percell said. "They would have brought it seven nights a week, but that was too much food."
   
   As Joan's health failed, Percell knew that sooner or later he'd be a single man again.
   ...
   It became Joan's goal to attend their son Jeff's 4 p.m. wedding on March 11, 2000, in Fresno. "For a while it seemed like Joan would make it to the wedding," Percell said.
   ...
   But friends told Percell she never would, that she might die on the way to Fresno or during the wedding.
   ...
   His son Jeff, an assistant principal at a high school in Fresno, and his wife, Christianna, have two girls: Peyton, 3, and Devon Joan, 1.
   ...
   Percell baptized Devon and Virginia last July.
   ...
   Percell has sold the family home in Sunnyvale. He bought a place near the ocean that is large enough for his family to gather for holidays and celebrations, such as baby Virginia's recent first birthday.
   
   "I come up over a hill and there's the ocean," Percell said.