Cowboy priest comes to Buffalo

By Jackie Galli

Buffalo Bulletin

Via Wyoming News Exchange

BUFFALO — Father Bryce Lungren is often seen wearing a cowboy hat and boots with his vestments.

While his outfit might not fit the mold of a typical Catholic priest, Lungren said he learned that embracing his natural identity empowers him to be a better priest. Lungren was the assistant pastor at St. Matthew's Church in Gillette before moving to Buffalo to become the pastor at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, following the retirement of Father Jim Heiser.

Lungren was 28 when he discerned a calling to the priesthood, beginning with seminary. The more he learned about the Church and the priesthood, the more Lungren said he “fell in love.”

“I understood it on a level that I couldn't even explain," he said. “But, I guess the fruit of that is the doors kept opening for me to get through school.”

But before that, he worked at his family's ranch for 10 years. Lungren's family has been ranching in Worland for five generations. One of the challenges he has experienced over the course of his journey to the priesthood was finding a way to stay true to himself.

“The basic human struggle is to be fully yourself, and it's only in following Christ that we can become fully ourselves,” Lungren said. "So there's that, but there's always a temptation to be someone you're not. And I think for me to enter seminary, that was a big struggle.”

Lungren said a turning point came for him during his seminary years when he was in a meet- ing and couldn't find a way to contribute to the conversation. He took his hat off to get in the mode, he said. While staring down at his hat, he remembered something his grandfather, who had recently passed away, always said.

“I remember him always saying, 'Always wear a hat,' but this time, he didn't say, 'Always wear a hat,' he said, 'Always wear your hat,'" Lungren said. "... Be yourself, and then you'll become who God needs you to be. So the hat's a lot for me. It's a real metaphor for not just who I am as a priest, but who I am as a son.”

Both relationships work in tandem, he said.

“Grace builds on nature, and so living out of our relationship with God, we need to live out of who we are naturally in order to serve supernaturally,” he said. “So part of my nature is as a cowboy.”

Lungren said he still takes time to ranch – for him, a way to renew his sonship with God. It also helps ease his feelings of responsibility as a pastor. Lungren said a useful analogy is comparing his position as a father in a Catholic parish to a father and husband caring for his family.

"There's a lot of demands and responsibilities on him, and that can be overwhelming,” Lungren said.

But if that father focuses on his relationship with God as God's son, it can be more manageable, Lungren said.

"I'm a son before I'm a father, so I live out my baptismal identity as a beloved son of God, the father, in order to serve well as a priest,” he said.

Lungren's background in Wyoming also helps him connect with parishioners. Lungren said he likes to speak from his heart in his homilies and about things that are relevant to the 21st century.

"I avoid hypothetical, and I'm more of a practical preacher,” he said.

He wrote a book that was recently published titled “The Catholic Cowboy Way,” in which he shares, in part through personal anecdotes, how the lifestyle and mentality of a cowboy pairs well with Christian life.

Lungren said he has felt welcome in Buffalo, both in and out of the church community.

“I think we already speak the same language. I mean I've driven through Buffalo 100 times, but I've never stayed here until now," Lungren said. "But it's Wyoming, and Worland would be the same, Gillette the same. I would just say I'm like a hometown boy."

This story was published on September 5, 2024.