Priest Has Devoted Life to Cause: He's Committed Decades to Decreasing Hunger Worldwide and Was Called to Aid Mother Teresa.

By Lindsay Hanson Metcalf, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Jul. 15--"I've often said, 'Why me, Lord?' I'm sure the Lord said, 'I've been wondering that, too.' "

The Rev. Pat Tobin

The Rev. Pat Tobin's life changed in an Ethiopian slum in 1968.

Twenty yards away, he saw a stumbling boy who couldn't have been older than 13. The boy reached to the ground, clawed a handful of dirt and ate it.


"Doesn't he know that will harm him, it will kill him?" Tobin remembers asking Mother Teresa, an international human rights figure with whom he worked closely.

"That's the only way he can survive," she said.
Tobin wept. And that's when he dedicated his life to fighting hunger.


The Northland resident is celebrating his 50th year as a Catholic priest. His service to the church and to humanity has left a wide imprint on social services to the area and to the world.

He helped relocate Cuban refugees to Kansas City. He co-founded the area's leading food bank. He shared missionary work alongside Mother Teresa. He helped prisoners make a positive contribution to society, and he ushered hundreds of children into foster and adoptive homes. And that's just the surface.

His secret?

"If it looks like there's a burnout," Tobin said, "just light more fires."

At 76, the flames still burn at a healthy pace.

Tobin was pastor of an inner-city parish when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 death sparked rioting in Kansas City. That's when he first wrote to Mother Teresa, who was known for her inspirational audio messages to youth.

She called, asking him to meet her in Chicago. They met for four hours and then parted ways.

On a Thursday, she called again. She wanted Tobin in Calcutta, India, that Monday to help her lead an eight-day retreat for her Missionaries of Charity.

"You must have the wrong person," he remembers telling her. She assured him that she did not.

Incredulous, Tobin knew better than to refuse Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner. That call ignited more than three decades of commitment that's taken him to 31 countries.

"I've often said, 'Why me, Lord?' " Tobin said. "I'm sure the Lord said, 'I've been wondering that, too.' "

At one time, he accompanied Mother Teresa to a meeting with Pope John Paul II. Tobin regarded the two as saints, but they bantered like old pals.

"They were like two sixth-graders teasing each other," he recalled. [More]

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