I was born in Atlanta and grew up in Marietta, Georgia, and I was always attracted to my faith. I heard about the lives of saints and said to myself, “If God is who we say he is, he deserves everything.”

That led me to a Catholic HEART Workcamp in Bluffton, South Carolina. There, I had an experience at Mass; I was convinced that by attending I had been spiritually transported to Calvary and that the Eucharist I had just received was truly Jesus. That made me hungry to know my faith more deeply. 

So, I went to the one place where I felt comfortable bringing deep questions: Google. The Catholic internet was not what it is today, but I encountered the preaching of a priest who taught me the need to spend time in silence and to pray the rosary. Around the same time, a number of Protestants at school asked me questions about my faith to which I didn’t know the answers. With the help of Catholic Answers, I became enamored with the beauty of the truth I saw. I devoured Catholic Answers podcasts during high school.

At another HEART workcamp, the priest who was leading asked for anyone who had been considering the priesthood to come up for a blessing. Priesthood had always been in the back of my mind, but that was the first time that I publicly announced it. I thought about it more that summer; by the end, my girlfriend of one year pointed out that we hadn’t been on many dates over the summer. As I pondered why I hadn’t noticed that earlier, I realized that during the time I spent with her, there was a tug on my heart that said, “This is good, but I made you for something different.”

When I attended Georgia Tech, I fell in love with the Catholic community there. I almost immediately became involved in the leadership team. The witness of the priests at the university Catholic Center, and the ways that they fathered us as a family there, was great inspiration. I became convinced that I had a priestly vocation by my second year at Tech.

One notable event was getting semi-perpetual eucharistic adoration started. I had been pushing for adoration for a few years, and my pleading was finally heard. And, although it was already my most difficult academic semester, I was “tricked” into coordinating the schedule of eucharistic guardians. It was extremely fruitful; to this day, the Catholic Center maintains nearly the same schedule of 80 hours of eucharistic adoration each week.

In 2015, I graduated from Georgia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and entered Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans as a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. I grew a lot during my time there, and during a pastoral year, I discerned God calling me out of seminary for a time. I knew that there were still ways I needed to grow, and that was best done outside of seminary.

Re-entering the workforce was not easy; it’s difficult to convince a businessman of the value of studying philosophy, even though it is very helpful in several ways. But the company where I’d worked during college, in an extended internship, offered me a job; so, I resumed doing engineering contracting work for the Air Force. I worked there for four years and founded a successful young adult ministry, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdown, because I knew how to use technology to mobilize other young adults.

During this period of my life, I still knew I was called to the priesthood but was praying about which direction to go. I encountered an ad in my diocesan newspaper for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, which supplies chaplains to the military. It was a picture of a priest celebrating Mass just a stone’s throw from a battleground. I was brought to tears as I began to discern that, for the people I had been serving as an engineer, God might be calling me to serve as a spiritual father.

I had a relationship with an Atlanta priest, then-Father Jacques Fabre-Jeune. And, shortly after he became the bishop of Charleston, I followed him here. I spent a year working in two parishes: first a few months at St. John the Beloved in Summerville, and then the better part of a year at Our Lady of the Hills in Columbia, which became my home parish.

Bishop Fabre sent me to St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. I have particularly appreciated the seminary’s spiritual direction program. Though spiritual direction is not necessarily reserved to priests, I look forward to giving spiritual direction in future ministry.

I’m currently a second lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve and co-sponsored by the Archdiocese for the Military Services to be an Air Force chaplain. I spend a few weeks during the summer doing ministry on an Air Force base, and the rest of the summer at a parish in South Carolina. 

Once I am ordained a priest, I’ll spend three years in parish ministry with one month per year of training and ministry as a reservist. Then, I’ll go on active duty for at least five years. Afterward, I anticipate that the bishop will call me back, and I’ll resume parish ministry here for the rest of my life. My anticipated diaconate ordination is in the summer of 2027, and my priestly ordination in the summer of 2028.

I felt a great welcome from the people of South Carolina — I feel very much at home here.

Learn more 

Learn about our diocesan seminarians at vocations.charlestondiocese.org, or visit charlestondiocese.org/seminarian-fund.