FROM PRIEST TO HUSBAND

In1990, 48-year-old John Stack was a priest at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas. This holy Father happened to be a fan of Western dancing, so he frequented a local dancehall where he met 43-year-old Rosemary McGinn, and secretly started dating her.

It was two years after he returned from working with the Jesuits in Kenya and Tanzania, and he was lonely. For 10 years John saw that African priests “basically had common law wives” and thought they might have the right idea.

“For 40 years I lived with the assumption that I wasn’t going to get married, but I had a different experience in East Africa and knew I didn’t want to live alone the rest of my life,” John says.

Five years after the couple met he proposed, with one condition — she’d have to wait until he was 65.

“I asked her to wait because I knew when I left [the priesthood] and got kicked out I wouldn’t get any money or coverage,” he says. “I didn’t want to put that burden on her.”

So Rosemary agreed to wait so that John could qualify for Medicare. He served as a Jesuit high school priest from 1987-2004 until someone sent an anonymous letter to the bishop regarding his relationship, and he was excommunicated.

“I always told him I was never going to take him out [of the church], so if he left, it was his decision,” Rosemary says.

John says two things were going through his mind before he was kicked out: He was certain of his love, but also disappointed that he had to wait.

John says he feels they’ve been married longer than their actual wedding date of March 5, 2005, which was chosen because 05/05/05 was a “neat date,” he says. More than 500 guests were in attendance at John and Rosemary’s open invitation wedding at the Samuell-Grand Park amphitheatre. It began precisely at sunset. “We used the twilight for lighting, which was gorgeous,” he says.

Now more than 100 people gather at

“For 40 years I lived with the assumption that I wasn’t going to get married, but I had a different experience in East Africa and knew I didn’t want to live alone the rest of my life.” to advertise call 214.560.4203

Vines High School in Plano at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday where he performs mass. John used to perform two masses on Sundays, one at Jesuit and the other at St. Mark Catholic Church in Plano, but after excommunication he had nowhere to go.

That’s when fellow St. Mark’s church members approached him and requested he perform special masses for them. The community rents the high school cafeteria, and Rosemary helps with the masses, which is “reason No. 999 priests should be married,” he jokes.

“I feel tremendous consolation with life and tremendous peace,” John says.

Rosemary agrees that this is the most peaceful time of her life, too.

“I had a really good life, and I have a marvelous life now,” Rosemary says, clutching John’s hand.