A local Catholic Priest is celebrating 50 years with the Church today.
Monsignor Ernest E. Pizzamiglio was ordained May 22, 1966.
He was born in Chicago, grew up in Spring Valley, served in the Air Force and wasn’t raised Catholic.
Pizzamiglio tells Galesburg’s Evening News on WGIL he was in his bunk one night while working the night shift in the Air Force when a picture entered his mind.
“I was vested as a priest, holding up the host as if at consecration at the mass,” Pizzamiglio says. “I thought, well that’s a little odd. My mind wasn’t a thousand miles near that. So I just threw it out of mind as I would a bad thought.”
But the picture kept returning. After contemplating, he finally gave himself to the Church through prayer.
“I thought ok, since you gave me life, out of love for me, I’ll give you my life out of love for you,” Pizzamiglio says. “If you want me to be a lay brother ok, if you want me to be a priest, ok,” Pizzamiglio says.
Pizzamiglio has been with the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Galesburg for nearly three decades.
