Pope John Paul II has named Msgr. Thomas E. Gullickson, 54, a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, as the papal representative to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies, while at the same time making him an archbishop of the church.
Archbishop-elect Gullickson is returning home to be ordained. The ordination is scheduled for Thursday, November 11 at 2 p.m. in St. Joseph Cathedral.
Gullickson, ordained a priest for the diocese in 1976, served the diocese in a variety of ministries before earning a doctorate in Canon Law and entering the Vatican diplomatic service in 1985.
Since then he has served as a diplomat in Rwanda (1985-87), Austria (1987-90), Czech Republic and Slovakia (1990-93), Jerusalem, Cyprus and Israel (1993-96), and Germany (1996 to now).
His appointment means he is the lead diplomat or representative from the Vatican, called an apostolic nuncio. He will be only the second U.S. priest currently in such a position.
“The Holy See has had a sort of system of ambassadors almost from the beginning,” said Gullickson. “With the changes in times and style, it eventually became a diplomatic corps similar to the diplomatic corps that any sovereign country would have in the world.”
“It is a rare and tremendous honor for our diocese to have one of its native sons and priests represent the church in this way,” said Bishop Robert Carlson. “Archbishop-elect Gullickson has a great intellect, excellent pastoral skills, and has proven his abilities as a representative of the Holy Father. At the same time, he has a deep love and appreciation for his South Dakota roots, returning home every summer. We are thrilled that his episcopal ordination will be in his home parish, St. Joseph Cathedral, which he visits whenever he is home.”
Archbishop-elect Gullickson’s appointment comes after close to 20 years of work in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps. “The largest number of ambassadors for any country are people who did some kind of training in an academy like I did, “said Gullickson. They “then have moved up through the ranks, working first in an assisting kind of a role and then eventually coming to be a point where they are entrusted with responsibility for a diplomatic mission overseas.”
Archbishop-elect Gullickson recognizes his new assignment is an important one. “There’s no two ways about it,” he said. “It is a position of trust and primary among the responsibilities that I will have is to further or to foster those bonds of unity that hold the universal Church together.”
Although he has already lived in several different parts of the world with his work for the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, much of what Archbishop-elect Gullickson is experiencing in connection to his appoint is even more special. “It is awe-inspiring in a certain sense because how well it has been received by my family and my church family in Sioux Falls,” he said.
There have been a flood of e-mails and well-wishes from family, friends, classmates, colleagues and the diocesan congregation. “It’s a time of being awed by the love and the power and the grace which is part also of the Church’s life,” he said.
Gullickson was born in Sioux Falls on August 14, 1950, the first of eight children born to Leon Gullickson (deceased) and Dolores (Meyers) Gullickson, who now resides in Hutchinson, KS.
The family lived in Moorehead, MN, during Gullickson’s first seven years of grade school at St. Joseph Parish grade school there, before returning to Sioux Falls.
Gullickson completed 8th grade at the Cathedral and he was part of the first class to enter Minor Seminary in Sioux Falls. He was the male valedictorian of his class from O’Gorman High School in 1968.
Gullickson attended St. Mary College (Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary), Winona, MN, before attending the North American College, Rome, coimpleting a bachelor’s in Theology, and one year of the license in Dogma at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Gullickson was ordained to the diaconate with his class in Rome, in 1975, by Cardinal James Hickey, then bishop of Cleveland.
He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Lambert A. Hoch, on June 27, 1976, in St. Joseph Cathedral. He was part of a class of seven men ordained to the priesthood that year.
Gullickson was assigned to Christ the King Parish for the first year of his priesthood, teaching full-time religion and Latin at O’Gorman High School.
Bishop Paul V. Dudley sent Father Gullickson to Rome in the fall of 1981 to study for his doctorate in Canon Law. At the same time, Father Gullickson pursued language courses and the internal program of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.
He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1985.
In 1986, Gullickson was named a Chaplain of His Holiness. Msgr. Gullickson received the title of Honorary Prelate on December 30, 1997.
In addition to English, Archbishop-elect Gullickson speaks Italian, German and French.
Gullickson has been serving as counsellor of the Apostolic Nuncio in Germany since 1996.
Episcopal ordinations (ordinations of bishops) are rare, and only two others have occurred in the last 50 years in this diocese.
In 1952 native son and priest Lambert Hoch was ordained a bishop (served first in Bismarck, then Sioux Falls from 1956-78) at St. Joseph Cathedral. Bishop Paul Anderson was ordained a bishop to serve the Diocese of Duluth in 1968 and that ordination was held in the Huron Civic Center.
A full house will be present at the ordination, including some of bishops from various countries of the world, and representatives of each parish in the diocese.