February 8, 2010
Father John J. Foley, CSPFather John J. Foley, CSP, has been elected the vice president of the Paulist Fathers, and will take office at the General Assembly meeting to be held in Washington, D.C., in May.
Father Foley will work with president-elect Father Michael McGarry, CSP, the first consultor (to be named by the president) and the six members of the Paulist General Council to lead the 152-year-old group of priests.
“As a member of Father McGarry’s administration, I will be supporting our enhancement of regional and national ministries; looking to interact with people of various nationalities who gift our American Catholicism with multicultural experiences of faith; and furthering the use of new communications techniques to give the Word a more penetrating voice,” Father Foley said.
Father Foley has been a Paulist priest for 43 years, including two decades of experience as a pastor and eight years serving as the Paulist liaison with the Vatican, all the while a practicing canon lawyer.
With a doctorate in canon law from Gregorian University in Rome, Father Foley has been particularly involved in the application of the Dallas Charter (the U.S. Bishops regulations regarding abuse in the church) in various diocese and religious communities.
Known as “Sean” to family and friends, Father Foley was born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised in New York City. Father Foley describes his family as “Catholic all the way.”
“At home we prayed the rosary together, and we always went to church together,” he recalled.
The call to the priesthood came early for young Sean at age 14. He was ready to enter a high school seminary after the eighth grade, but his parents urged him to wait.
“They were right,” Father Foley said. “I wouldn’t have gotten to know the Paulists. I would have joined a different order.”
Having first met the Paulists as an altar server at Notre Dame Parish in Manhattan, it was while attending Power Memorial Academy, a high school run by the Irish Christian Brothers, that the future Paulist reencountered the men that would become his brothers. At Notre Dame, he met visiting Paulist Father Thomas McCormack, “He was a very nice man and a very impressive preacher.”
Power Memorial was located just a few blocks from the Paulist motherhouse in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and the Paulists had a strong affiliation with the school. Father Foley recalls the Paulists as being very approachable. Father James McQuade, who today served as chaplain to Roosevelt Hospital across from the Paulist motherhouse in New York, was chaplain at Power Memorial when Father Foley was a student.
The future Paulist studied for two years at the Paulist minor seminary – St. Peter’s College in Baltimore – after graduating from high school. He then entered the Paulist novitiate at Mount Paul in New Jersey for one year before heading to Washington, D.C., to attend St. Paul’s College for six years.
Father Foley was ordained a Paulist priest on May 1, 1967 at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City.
After ordination, he served St. Paul the Apostle Parish for eight years. Following a brief assignment to Austin, Texas, he joined the Paulist formation team at St. Paul’s College, and then served as pastor and superior of Good Shepherd Church in New York City. Later he served as rector and superior of Santa Susanna Church in Rome, during which time he also served as the Paulist liaison with the Vatican. Next he served as pastor and superior of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco before taking a yearlong sabbatical to complete his doctorate.
In 2000, Father Foley became the director of the Mount Paul Retreat Center in Oak Ridge, N.J., while simultaneously serving as the superior of the Paulist motherhouse in New York City from 2004-08. Father Foley then oversaw the sale of the Paulist property in Oak Ridge to the State of New Jersey, which became final in 2009.
“From childhood, I was captivated by the spirit of missionary priests who came to our parish,” said Father Foley. “I have found the Paulists to be a great group of men with whom to live and share a mission.”
Father McGarry, 61, was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His path to the Paulist priesthood began with an admiration of the diocesan priests that served his home parish of St. Jerome in southwest Los Angeles. The future Paulist knew he wanted to be come a priest around the age of 8.
“I enjoyed serving at Mass,” he recalled, later writing to the Paulists because. “… their vocation material spoke to what I wanted to be as a priest. I admired the creative and bold ministry of the Paulists.”
The future Paulist entered the order’s novitiate in September 1968. Father McGarry was in the last class to graduate from the Paulist minor seminary, St. Peter’s College in Baltimore, and the last class to be granted undergraduate degrees in philosophy from St. Paul’s College in Washington D.C., where today’s Paulist novitiate is housed and seminarians go through formation while attending classes at Catholic University or Washington Theological Union.
After graduating from St. Paul’s, Father McGarry participated in what he describes as a “unique experiment” in Paulist formation at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto.
“A small number of Paulist students discerned their Paulist vocation, and I am most grateful to be among those who studied in Toronto,” he said.
After he years of study and formation, Father McGarry was ordained a Paulist priest on May 17, 1975.
Ministering to the needs of the students and community at the University Catholic Center at the University of Texas at Austin was Father McGarry’s first priestly assignment, from 1975-78. He then served at the Paulist Center in Boston from 1978-79 before becoming the center director from 1979-86.
He spent a semester sabbatical being educated in Jewish studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem before being named director of formation for the Paulist Fathers (1986-93) at St. Paul’s College in Washington, D.C.
Father McGarry then moved across the country to serve as pastor of Holy Spirit Parish at the University of California at Berkeley, serving in that capacity from 1993-1999.
His next assignment took him half way around the world, as Father McGarry took the post of rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies in Jerusalem. He has written extensively on Christian-Jewish relations (including Christology After Auschwitz) and serves on the Advisory Board for Christian-Jewish Relations for the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops.
Throughout his Paulist priesthood, Father McGarry said he has had the “privilege of being part of an energetic and creative group of men on fire with the Gospel.”
“This has stretched me and inspired me to do the same,” he said.