Office of the University Chaplain

I am a native of Baltimore, growing up between Towson and Lutherville and attending Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish and School. I started to discern a call to the priesthood as a young altar server. That discernment continued through high school at Calvert Hall where I was very involved in liturgical ministry and service work. I decided to enter college seminary directly after high school and began my formation at Our Lady of Providence Seminary in Providence, Rhode Island. I received a B.A. in Philosophy from Providence College and was then assigned to continue formation in Rome at the Pontifical North American College. In Rome, I studied for two degrees in theology (S.T.B. and S.T.L.) at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also called the Angelicum. My field of specialty is dogmatic theology with particular interest in liturgy, sacraments, and ecclesiology.

I was ordained a priest in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, and returned to Rome shortly thereafter to finish my second degree. Upon completion, I was assigned as Associate Pastor of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore where I served from 2021-2024. In my third year at Cathedral, I was also appointed Associate Pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore. I taught regularly in the School of the Cathedral and offered theology classes to parishioners on Saturday mornings. I also worked with the Source of All Hope Missionary Program, dedicated to Eucharistic Adoration and homeless outreach, and was responsible for coordinating the missionaries’ formation.

I was asked to consider a new assignment as Chaplain to Mount St. Mary’s University the Tuesday of Holy Week. The Good Lord, apparently, thought I needed something to take my mind off of planning the Archbishop’s Triduum liturgies at the Cathedral! I had not seriously thought about doing ministry outside of a parish context, so the initial ask caught me off guard. In short order, however, I was able to see how God had prepared me for this through a number of experiences and readily accepted. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve at the Mount, to join this community, and to become part of its rich history.

When I was moving in, I said to some of the campus ministry team that when I’m in the office, I never want it to look like I’m working. What I meant was that I always want students to feel like they can approach me, and I don’t want to give them the impression that I’m too busy for them. They are, after all, the reason I’m here. A couple of months into the school year, I can’t say I’ve been completely successful—but I’m not letting go of the ideal. An effective chaplain is one who is present and involved in the students’ lives. There is an unfortunate amount of office work that’s necessary to make that happen, but the real work is that of relationship, encounter, and accompaniment. No evangelization can happen without any of that. So, I try to make it a priority to get to games, talk to people in the café, and sit down with students in the dining hall for meals. I also bring my corgi puppy, Floyd, with me to work most days—and he’s a better evangelizer than I’ll ever be!

I’ve got a beautiful pulpit in the chapel to preach from, and I absolutely believe in the power of a good homily, but supporting students’ spiritual needs is, at its best, a one-on-one endeavor. Sometimes that’s the context of the confessional, but it can also take the form of spiritual direction. I also want students to know that they can come talk to me about anything, even if (on the surface) it doesn’t have anything to do with God. Young people have no shortage of ideas rolling around in their head. What they often lack is someone to help them make sense of what they think. I see myself as someone who is there to help them connect the dots.

What I said earlier about relationship, encounter, and accompaniment applies to all students, not only the Catholics. In recent years, the Mount community has taken in a significant number of non-Catholics, and as Chaplain, I’m there for them too. That’s because, at the end of the day, I believe firmly in what the Catholic Church teaches: that only in Christ do we come to understand ourselves. My role is to walk with people in their encounter with the Lord—and my door is always open for those conversations. Thanks to our FOCUS team, we also run Bible studies that for everyone to dive deeper into God’s Word; and the retreats offered by Campus Ministry are likewise offered to all. While the majority of our ministry is to Catholics, we do strive to make ourselves, in the words of St. Paul, “all things to all people” (1 Cor. 9:22), because we believe the Good News is meant to be preached to everyone.

How to minister to non-Catholics at a Catholic school is certainly a challenge; however, we should also admit that ministering to Catholics is no walk in the park either! We have a good number of students who are well-catechized, who know and love their faith, and have started to find their place in the Church. Thank God for them, but they’re the exception! Much more often, I find myself going back to the essentials—what the Church calls the kerygma, the first proclamation of the Gospel. Even Catholics who have always attended Catholic school also need to hear that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins and lead us to life everlasting. The Good News is still news for a lot of folks! In a sense, one’s religious background doesn’t matter. We have to evangelize everyone—and as Pope St. Paul VI reminded us, we do that by first being evangelized ourselves!

So, it all starts with our team—our campus minsters and FOCUS missionaries—and our relationship with the Lord. We’ve made a commitment to pray a holy hour together every Wednesday morning. In fact, most of us are in the chapel at the same time on the other days of the week as well. We’re prioritizing our spiritual life, because you can’t give what you don’t have. Then what we have we give first to our student leaders—those who run groups and ministries. We invest in them because they have tremendous gifts, and the other students look up to them. We want them to be able to encounter and accompany their peers in their faith. And then we have initiatives that are about casting an ultra-wide net: pick-up volleyball, dodgeball, and ping-pong games and free donuts in Campus Ministry on Thursdays. If that’s the beginning of a relationship that leads to Christ, then God be praised!

I’d want everyone to know what an amazing group of students we have here. I’m sincerely impressed by the faith and devotion they show on a daily basis. It’s a privilege to walk with them and serve them.