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For many grappling with issues surrounding morality, spirituality and faith, the Rev. Wilmer Todd has been a guiding light.
Todd, a Catholic priest who writes a religious column printed in four Bayou Region newspapers, recently published a collection of many of those columns in a new book.
The book, titled What a Life! Daily Readings for a Holistic Spiritual Life, is a collection of 370 out of Todd’s 800 columns. The book offers a reading for each day of the year, Holy Week, and Leap Day.
First published in The Daily Comet, Todd has written the column since 1998. Todd said he finds inspiration for topics in the news.
“I try to look at some of them that had a deeper spiritual significance,” Todd said when describing how he chose which columns to include in the book. “Some of them were commentary on science.”
Todd said that he tries to write in a spiritual context that people today can relate to, offering spiritual guidance on a vast variety of moral issues that modern society is faced with.
Todd is a very progressive priest, said Louis Aguirre, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux.
“He is very much a Vatican II priest and very much the type of priest that wants to engage the laity in their ministry in the church,” Aguirre said.
Todd is a trained educator, earning his master’s degree in Education and Counseling from Nicholls State University during his 11 year tenure there as chaplain. He said that virtually every church he served had a school. Although he never actually taught classes, he was always involved in education.
Currently, Todd is the pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Chauvin, where he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a priest last year.
He actually retired from the priesthood seven years ago and worked with Journey Hospice in Houma, but the job required many long hours driving, which was taxing. He still helps the hospice on the weekends, though.
When Msgr. Frederic J. Brunet retired after 42 years at St. Joseph, Todd decided to come out of retirement to tend to the flock.
“I said, you know, this is where I started off fifty years ago,” said Todd. “And so I said it’d be nice to go back here.”
Todd originally wanted to be a monk, but changed his mind in college because he wanted to work with people.
“He is very much a Vatican II priest and very much the type of priest that wants to engage the laity in their ministry in the church,” said it was an obstacle that he worked to overcome.
“I do better in small groups and I think that as a priest one of the things I had to learn is just to be comfortable with big groups and just be myself,” Todd said. “I’m not a natural outgoing person.”
Over the course of his long career, Todd has helped many people, both directly and through his column. He said he continuously receives letters from readers and the laity thanking him for his service.
One man still thanks him for guidance given years ago. When Todd was the chaplain at Nicholls University, a student with a bad case of acrophobia, otherwise known as a fear of heights, could not bear to ascend the stairs to a second floor classroom.
“So every morning I would have to talk to him about, he had to go to class,” said Todd. “He went and I just kept strengthening him and saying he could do it. Well he not only did it, but he became a doctor of psychology.”
A letter from the man is included in Todd’s book. Todd says that it shows the power that we have in encouraging one another to bring out the best in people.
The Rev. Wilmer Todd displays his new book, “What a Life!,” a collection of his newspaper columns.
