Biography
We’re blessed to have Fr. Joe serve as our chaplain for multiple programs. This will be his second year accompanying our young adults on the Michigan Ski Retreat and the first time he’ll be accompanying our families stateside and abroad. He was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He’s one of 10 kids, three of which are married and two of which are Dominicans Sisters. He has 19 nieces and nephews and 3 great-nieces and nephews. Right after high school, he studied in St. Paul, MN, at St. John Vianney College Seminary for four years. After getting my bachelor’s degree there in philosophy, he went to Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit for four years to get his master’s degree in theology. He very nearly didn’t end up going to seminary after high school because he had tried talking himself out of the priesthood. But he knew that he would never be at peace until I truly surrendered my life to God, so he went to seminary to spend time discerning what God really wanted for him. With time, God gave him a strong desire for the priesthood and began making it clear that He was calling him to be a priest.
By the grace of God, he was ordained a priest on June 10th 2017, and has been serving since then at St. Patrick Catholic Parish–a large suburban parish in Brighton, Michigan. There have been tremendous blessings and some real challenges in my first few years of priesthood. God has been so good to me throughout this adventure!