Father Michael Tarigopula

Hi, I am Fr. Michael. I come from India. I was born in a village called Pannur, in the state of Tamil Nadu on April 16, 1967. My father was a farmer and my mother, a house wife. My father died in 1986 and my mother, in 2006. My older brothers are John Bosco, Christuraj, Dominic and Balaswamy. My older sisters are Theresa, Josephine and Anthony Mary.  Fatima Mary and Louis Mathias are my younger sister and brother. All are Catholics and I am the only priest in my family. All the nine of my siblings are married and I have 6 nieces and 10 nephews. They all live in India.

When I was small, my mother used to tell me that I will become priest.  It was when I was an altar boy in my fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, I was inspired by my pastor and wanted to be a good priest like him.  At the age of 13, I joined apostolic school and continued on to minor seminary to become a priest.  I had only one intention all through that was to become a good priest. After my entire seminary studies in India, by the grace of God, I was ordained a priest on April 28, 1994 for the diocese of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh.

As a priest, I have served in different capacities.  In my first year, I was a chaplain to leprosy patients at Rapur. Over the next four years, I was in a new mission called Somasila where I brought seventy families to the Catholic faith.  For the next four years, I was financial administrator of the diocese. For the next three years, I was assistant pastor at Epiphany Church in Sayre, PA, USA. For the next seven years, I was Rector of Infant Jesus diocesan Shrine at Tada, India. And now I am here with you as parochial administrator of St. Patrick’s, Cottage Grove, diocese of Madison, WI.

You might ask me, “do you like to come to the USA?”  I  can only tell you that I obey the orders of the bishop to go wherever he sends me. I believe that his direction comes from God. And God knows what is good for me. Where ever I serve, I love my people and they are my priority.

Am I happy in my priesthood? Yes, I am very happy that God gave me this gift of priesthood to serve His people. I preached the Gospel and I brought many people to Catholic faith. I’ve helped people live better social and economic lives.  Some of my works are: I built a chapel in Manchalapalli, a Church, a presbytery, an orphanage in Tada, built permanent houses for 64 poor families in different missions and sent many children to school who otherwise could not afford an education. I sent one young man to seminary. He is in the second year theology and the other as a trained catechist who is working in a Church.

I love sports. I play soccer, cricket, volleyball, badminton, ping pong etc. My hobbies are reading books, stamp collecting, and watching documentaries. My desire is to uplift the poor and downtrodden who live in abject poverty in rural India and so that they  live a life of dignity.