When Mary Vincent married Peter Dally, an Episcopal priest, she expected to raise their family cradled in the security of a normal pastoral ministry somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. However, that all changed in 1980 when the Roman catholic Church announced that it would ordain married Episcopal priests in a program known as the Pastoral Provision. One of the first to apply, Father Peter was ordained a Catholic priest in 1985 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He served congregations there with Mary beside him until 1998 when he retired. Mary describes for the reader the challenges the couple faced in this very dissimilar religious culture, the warmth of the people of Oklahoma, the humor of their unusual situation, and the poignant events that make up their days. She tells how she and Peter coped with his mysterious occasional exclusion as a married priest, and the isolation and loneliness she experienced as the wife of a priest. This true story is an exciting and challenging adventure in living an improbable lifestyle. You're sure to enjoy this heartwarming personal account.

In 1980 Pope John Paul II and the American Bishops agreed to accept married Episcopal priests into the Roman Catholic Priesthood in a program known as the Pastoral Provision. While many Catholic priests had left their active ministries for marriage, here the Catholic Church made an historically unprecedented invitation to the priesthood for already married men. This is the true story of the journey of one such priest and his wife. Father Peter Dally, an Episcopal priest for twenty-eight years, was one of the first men to apply to the program. In a tale that exposes the complexities and uncertainties, the personal challenges and emotional trauma, the religious politics, and precarious financial difficulties surrounding such a change of churches, the Dallys discover a renewed strength in their relationship and are ultimately rewarded with success, though they must first leave Washington State and move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, before Peter is ordained after five years of struggle. This book is religious history in the making, but it is also a warm, human story of a loving married couple, their mutual support, and profound faith. This book is the revised and updated second edition. The first edition, published in 1988 by Loyola University Press, received and Oklahoma Writers Federation Award for the Best Nonfiction Book by an Oklahoma Writer in 1989. From the Foreword by Bishop Eusebius Beltran, Bishop of Tulsa: .."..I never fully recognized the depth and intensity of her own experiences until I read this, her own account. Until then, The Pastoral Provisions pointed merely to the men who were to be ordained. Now I see them encompassing the wives and families, indeed, the whole Church."