Priests and sisters from religious orders have been an essential part of Catholic life in Ohio since its earliest days. Dominican friars celebrated Ohio’s first Catholic Mass in Somerset in 1808 and established the state’s first parish there 10 years later, and Dominican sisters followed them in 1839. They were joined by many other orders in the next two centuries.
That tradition is continuing, with several orders new to the diocese sending members to its parishes in the past year to serve as staff members at parishes and schools and to take part in a variety of ministries.
“The addition of new congregations and the growth in numbers for some congregations already present in the diocese point toward the stability and vitality of the local Church,” said Father Stash Dailey, diocesan vicar for religious, who helped several orders of priests and sisters establish themselves in the diocese during the past several years while he was pastor of Columbus Holy Family Church.
“There is a mutual benefit regarding the growth of congregational ‘families’ in the diocese and the growth of family life among the faithful. Both are signs of incredible hope for the diocese. This has been true from the arrival of the Dominicans until the present day,” said Father Dailey, who will become vice rector of formation at the Pontifical College Josephinum when the seminary starts its academic year this month.
“Today, religious orders are involved in all types of apostolates – teaching, healing, early childhood development, evangelization, serving in hospitals, visiting the homebound, adult faith formation and much more. They are a critical part of the diocese’s work, especially as the number of diocesan priests has decreased,” he said.
Father Dailey said he is constantly looking for additional orders willing to serve in the diocese at the invitation of Bishop Earl Fernandes.
Father Dailey’s former parish, Holy Family, is one of several parishes formerly served by diocesan priests that are being staffed entirely by priests from orders. Two friars from the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, known as the Mercedarians, arrived at Holy Family on Jan. 17, with a third expected in Columbus this month.
Father Michael Donovan, O de M, the church’s new pastor, is from Chester, Pennsylvania and has been a pastor in New York and Florida and a parochial vicar in Cleveland and Philadelphia. Father Joseph Eddy, O de M, parochial vicar, also is from Pennsylvania and most recently was pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Cleveland. He also has served parishes in Florida and Philadelphia and was a teacher before discerning his call to the priesthood.
Their order was established in Spain in 1218 to ransom Christians held captive in Muslim lands. Besides their traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, they take a fourth vow pledging to give everything, including their lives if necessary, to redeem the captive and the oppressed. This means they sometimes have physically exchanged themselves for suffering Christians. They have been in Ohio since arriving in Youngstown and Cleveland in the 1920s.
Besides serving Holy Family, they will be establishing a student house there for young men training at the Josephinum to be Mercedarian friars.
The most recent priests from religious orders to arrive in the Columbus diocese are members of the Heralds of Good News. The order was established in India in 1984, sent its first members to the United States seven years later and now has 350 priests in six nations. In the United States, the Heralds serve the dioceses of Fort Worth, Texas; Gallup, New Mexico; Lexington and Owensboro, Kentucky; Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; and now Columbus.
Father Jins Devasia, HGN, is the new parochial vicar at Sunbury St. John Neumann Church. In his 12 years as a priest, he has been a parochial vicar, a director of a home for the poor and a school administrator in India and served as a missionary in Papua New Guinea for five years.
Father Anish Thomas, HGN, is the parochial vicar at New Albany Church of the Resurrection. A priest for eight years, he was a school and parish administrator at several locations in India. This assignment is the first in the United States for both.
Three priests from the Theatine Fathers, also known as the Congregation of Clerics Regular, came to the diocese in 2021, becoming the first members of the congregation to serve in a state outside Colorado since their order, which is based in Rome, left New York more than 100 years ago.
Father Tomas Carvajal, CR, is assigned to Dover St. Joseph and Zoar Holy Trinity churches. Newly ordained Fathers Victor Cano, CR, and David Arroyo, CR, came to Columbus Christ the King Church in the fall of last year. All three are on one-year assignments, are fluent in Spanish and are serving parishes with large Latino populations.
The Pallottine Fathers were given administration of Columbus St. Christopher Church in 2020, with Father Wojciech Stachura, SAC, serving as pastor and Father Andrzej Kozminski, SAC, as parochial vicar. They will be joined by two more members of their order who will receive assignments in the diocese, with one expected to arrive before the end of this month and one in October, Father Dailey said.
Three members of the Leaven of the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Mother Assumpta Tangan, LIHM; Sister Soledad Sauzameda, LIHM; and Sister Chiara Francisco, LIHM – arrived in Portsmouth in October 2021 and live in the convent at Portsmouth St. Mary Church.
All three visit the four parishes of the Scioto Catholic community – Portsmouth St. Mary and Holy Redeemer, Wheelersburg St. Peter in Chains and Pond Creek Holy Trinity.
Sister Chiara serves as the community’s religious education director and teaches at Portsmouth Notre Dame Elementary School and High School. Mother Assumpta is the community’s safe environment coordinator and director of its Protecting God’s Children program and Sister Soledad assists at Notre Dame Elementary and is involved in ministry to the homebound.
The sisters’ apostolate also includes household enthronements to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary and First Friday and First Saturday vigils. Their congregation was founded in the Philippines in 1991.
The sisters serve in Alabama, Nebraska, South Dakota, Australia and the Philippines. The Portsmouth convent is the order’s first in Ohio. Its members work for the conversion of broken families, young people and the parishes they serve.
Three members of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary moved in June into the convent of Columbus Our Lady of Peace Church, which since the parish’s founding in 1946 had been occupied by members of the Dominican Sisters of Peace and its predecessor congregation, the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs.
The three are Sister Zephrina Mary, FIH, director of the diocesan Missions Office; Sister Leonard Mary, FIH, who is on the parish ministerial staff; and Sister Riya Mary, FIH, who works in the diocesan Tribunal. Members of their order also have been serving since 2014 at Chillicothe St. Mary and St. Peter churches and Waverly St. Mary Church.
The sisters moved to the Our Lady of Peace convent from the convent at Columbus St. Aloysius Church. Their move opened up space for members of the Sisters of Our Lady of Kilimanjaro to move to St. Aloysius from the Columbus St. Ladislas Church convent.
Their congregation, which is based in Tanzania near Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa, is involved in health care and pastoral work. Its only other congregation in the United States is in Clearwater, Florida.
Sister Joo Yun, Sister Monique, Sister Guerline and Sister Loretta, all members of the Salesian Sisters, will begin their second year of service at Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School in the fall, leading Bible studies and assisting with prayer services and Mass preparation.
Sister Joo Yun also helps with choir practice and First Communion at Columbus St. Matthias Church, located next to DeSales. The sisters live in the former convent of Columbus Holy Name Church, near Ohio State University, allowing them to minister to students at the university.
Father Dailey said members of the Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus will begin living at the former St. Therese’s Retreat Center on Columbus’ east side in September. The congregation was founded in Spain in 1984, came to the United States in 2011 and has a novitiate in Steubenville.
Since 2020, it has offered monthly devotional programs known as DOYMAR encounters at Westerville St. Paul the Apostle Church for girls and young women ranging from first- to fifth-graders to college age. DOYMAR is a Spanish acronym that translates to “Prayerful and Marian-Apostolic Disciples of the Redemption.”
Other congregations of sisters who have established themselves in the diocese in the past three years include the cloistered Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary, at the former Sts. Peter and Paul Retreat Center in Newark; the Order of the Most Holy Savior of St. Bridget (the Brigittines), in a building adjacent to Holy Family Church; and the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the former Columbus Sacred Heart Church convent.
