Identical twins both choose to become priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
By Lauren Seynhaeve
On Monday, everyone who attended the Hesburgh Lecture in Buckley Center may have thought they were seeing double. Fr. Bill Lies, C.S.C., was the speaker for the event, and his identical twin brother, Fr. Jim Lies, C.S.C., presented his brother to the audience.
Bill and Jim are the eighth and ninth children of 10 in a devout Catholic family from Little Falls, Minn. Bill stands perhaps an inch taller than Jim, but Jim is still older by eight minutes.
"I am the eighth and Bill is the ninth, a fact of which I often have to remind him," Jim said.
Apart from their height, it's difficult to tell the twins apart, especially when they stand next to one another in their matching black suits and clerical collars.
Jim is the executive director of the Garaventa Center, a psychology professor and a pastoral resident in Shipstad Hall at UP. Bill is a political science professor and the executive director of the Center for Social Concerns at University of Notre Dame. The brothers haven't lived in the same town as one another since graduating high school.
"It would be a great grace to be in the same place working together, but we'll leave that up to the Holy Spirit to work out," Bill said in an e-mail.
Since they work at different universities, Bill and Jim do not get the chance to work together, but the twins were reunited on Monday night because Bill was invited to UP by the Notre Dame Club of Portland to give a presentation.
At the lecture, Jim introduced his twin, making more than a few jokes about Bill's looks.
"I often say Bill is my terribly handsome identical twin brother," Jim said. "I don't think I will ever have the opportunity to introduce someone so handsome."
Bill is a speaker for the Hesburgh Lecture Series, which sends scholars from the University of Notre Dame to speak all over the country. Bill gave a lecture called "Walking the Talk: Catholic Social Tradition and the Catholic University." He focused on building community and encouraging service among undergraduate students.
"It's not about shutting people out, it's about bringing people in - no matter what," he said. "It's in community where we find out who we are really called to be."
During his lecture, Bill spoke a lot about his own family, growing up in a loving household with 10 children and a widowed mother. Jim credits their family with influencing him and his brother to join the priesthood.
"I suspect the fact that we both chose priesthood has to do with the fact that we grew up in a Catholic culture in which it was as much an option as anything else that we might have chosen," Jim said in an e-mail. "I have an aunt who is a School Sister of St. Francis, an uncle who was an Irish Christian brother, and another uncle who was a Pallottine priest."
The brothers' father was a teacher at St. Mary's Catholic Grade School and their mother was a nurse at St. Gabriel's Hospital.
"These were some really impressive people, so nearly everyone in our family considered religious life because it just seemed like the right thing to do ... I mean, if they were that cool, why wouldn't you?" he asked in an e-mail.
Both Jim and Bill love working as priests.
"I run the Center for Social Concerns at Notre Dame and I'm grateful to be involved with a ministry that is so compelling and meaningful to me," Bill said in an e-mail. "The most important part of my priesthood, however, is probably the opportunity that I have to connect with people who are just trying to live their faith in the best ways they know how."
The Congregation of Holy Cross has given the Lies brothers a special opportunity for them to exercise their passions. They both love the ministry and the ability they have to help others.
"It was when I met the Congregation of Holy Cross that I could bring together the two great desires of my life: To live and minister as a priest and to do it in the context of a Catholic university," Jim said in an e-mail.
