MYSTIC, Conn. — Most people peg Father Kevin Reilly, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Mystic as ex-military, especially with a U.S. Navy submarine base just 10 miles away in Groton. 

Tall and muscular, he presents an imposing figure in this seaside town known for its colonial quaintness as well as its pizza. Parishioners say his baritone voice booms from the lectern at Mass, and his homilies almost always touch on practical elements of spiritual discipline, especially the need for regular confession. 

Father Reilly, 55, in his 14th year at St. Patrick’s, learned discipline in a different kind of former life: as a bouncer and bartender in Washington, D.C., and later in San Francisco. Following a rough-and-tumble young adulthood, he received a vision of Christ’s face that sent him on a path to the priesthood. And despite gaining a reputation for a no-nonsense approach to his pastoral duties, St. Patrick’s, in the Diocese of Norwich, has become a beacon for young families with small children in a geographic region (New England) that has seen a steady decline in Catholic communicants in recent decades. 

 

An Unlikely Calling

Following a brief stint working on Capitol Hill following his graduation from Georgetown in the early 1990s, Reilly returned to the world of bartending and bouncing in Washington, D.C., which he’d done in college. It paid better, according to Reilly, and it got him free drinks. He wasn’t short on girlfriends, either. 

“I reached a point where I’d become a poster child for what the culture was selling,” Father Reilly recalled in a recent homily. “Everybody was telling me how great my life was. I only worked three or four days a week. I made a pile of money. I basically got paid to do what people did on their day off. And yet, I was pretty miserable.”

He decided a change of scenery was in order, so he moved to San Francisco, where friends of his were getting rich in computer sales in the early days of the tech boom. He lined up a bartending gig and a girlfriend and headed west. But, as is often the case, the move didn’t make a difference to his spiritual condition. 

That’s when Reilly decided to crack open a book about the Blessed Mother given to him by his own mother years earlier.

The book ended up altering the course of Reilly’s life. While reading it, Reilly had a vision of the face of Jesus and sat in contemplation of it. Either minutes or hours could have passed — he doesn’t know. 

“There were tears just kind of rolling down his cheeks,” Reilly said. “And then he showed me this amazing saint, greater than anybody that’s ever existed. And I was just in awe of this person. Then I started to realize, it was me. That was who God intended me to be. In that moment, I realized the tears rolling down his face were for me. God was weeping for the damage I’d inflicted on myself.”

The experience, which Reilly described as painful beyond description but simultaneously the greatest moment of his life, transformed him and set him on a path to the priesthood. In the homily, he described the feeling of being led by the Blessed Mother to Jesus by the hand. The reason he hadn’t been able to find happiness in the world, the Blessed Mother communicated to him, was because he had been created to be a priest.

Reilly began to attend daily Mass, which was difficult because the bar he then worked at on Capitol Hill didn’t close until 3 a.m. He cried each time the priest elevated the Host because it took him back to the moment of his vision. For a self-described tough guy, this was another hurdle to showing up each day.  

“A tough guy can’t let themselves be seen that way,” he said. “It was a big church, at least, and I could hide in the back with the Capitol Hill cops.”

But Father Reilly kept moving closer to the Lord and his calling. He was ordained to the Diocese of Norwich in May 2003 and in 2011 was named pastor  at St. Patrick’s, which is close to the town in which he grew up and where his parents still live. He has been there now for 14 years. 

What is it about the burly disciplinarian that is drawing young Catholic parents back into the fold? 

For Matthew Farrell of Mystic, a 43-year-old father of two, Father Reilly’s habit of preaching a message contrary to the world and challenging his parishioners to be saints is what makes St. Patrick’s special. 

“He tells it like it is,” Farrell told the Register. “He challenges me in areas I need to be challenged in. I hear what I need to hear every week, not what I want to hear. He cares deeply for the spiritual growth of the parishioners. Plus, it’s a full house every week, with plenty of young families, and everyone sings! St. Patrick’s offers us what we desperately need.”

 

Magnet for Young Families

Catholicism in the Northeast has been in decline for decades, and Father Reilly’s home state of Connecticut has been no exception. The latest Pew study of religious affiliation in the U.S. showed a decline of Catholics in the Northeast from 36% in 2009 to 27% in 2019. Stories of church closings and consolidations due to aging parishioners and disaffiliation have been rampant in the Northeast since then. 

And yet, at St. Patrick’s, church attendance, particularly among young families with small children, is booming. Masses on Sunday are frequently standing-room only and filled with the sounds of life: cooing babies, tiny kicks against the pews, mothers shuffling up and down the aisles.

All signs indicate continued growth. In 2024 alone, the small-town parish performed more than 60 baptisms. And 30 students showed up for altar-server training, which had been rebooted after being suspended during COVID. Father Reilly had been doubtful even a single person would show up. 

For Faith Carpenter, a mother of six young children who has been attending St. Patrick’s since 2021, Father Reilly’s no-nonsense approach to his pastoral work is what makes the parish special. 

“He has totally revived my sacramental life,” she told the Register. “His emphasis on frequenting confession, Communion and adoration are changing my life for the better in all aspects. My motherhood is improving. My marriage is stronger.”

“When we first started attending, we were one of the only families with young children. But as the years have gone on, the number has quadrupled,” she added.

 

Back to Basics

Despite Father Reilly’s shift from tending bar to tending a flock, he has maintained his habit of making order out of chaos — even if that means saying things people don’t want to hear. 

“I like you all,” he often repeats during his homilies. “But I don’t like any of you enough to go to hell for you. So I need to tell you what you need to know. Otherwise, I’m going to have to answer for that someday.”

He also doesn’t hold back his disdain when he hears a cellphone ring during Mass. 

“Whoever that is, please turn off your phone,” he said a few weeks ago. “You’re here to listen to God, and I promise he isn’t texting or calling.”

St. Patrick’s installed two new stained-glass windows in the sanctuary in 2024, which were fittingly restored to resemble the original windows from 1870. Depicted on one side is a young girl kneeling before a confessional, while Jesus sits listening on the other side of the screen. On the other Jesus is shown consecrating the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Father Reilly selected these images because he frequently reminds parishioners that confession and the Eucharist are “the two wings that lift us to heaven.”

For Carpenter, it’s clear this message is responsible for drawing so many young families back into the fold.

“The lines at confession are just getting longer and longer, so I know others are starting to hear the message,” she said. “There is truly something special at work here in this little parish.”