The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has what some might consider a surprising new mission field: its own Catholic high school students.
“High schools are at the front lines for the souls of our young people, because the risk is high that students will lose their Catholic faith after they graduate,” explained Jason Slattery, director of Catholic education in the archdiocese and the superintendent of schools. “Cultural and peer influences that seek to divert them from the rich freedom their faith offers are waiting at every fork in the road,” he continued. “They will need to vigorously swim upstream if they want to hold firm to their Catholic foundation.”
The archdiocese’s growing realization that a strong Catholic presence is necessary at this critical time, and that high schools are natural mission territory for priests, is the reason that the Archdiocesan Office for the Mission of Catholic Education — at Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s behest — is placing new emphasis on the role of priest chaplains in the archdiocese’s 16 Catholic high schools.
The new initiative will take different forms at different schools. While increased access to the sacraments is a priority, Slattery said, the expanded vision of the priest chaplain’s role is to move beyond being “viewed as a mere dispenser of sacraments — which are essential to the Christian life — to providing a vibrant, indispensable priestly presence throughout the school day.”
This new vision of high schools as “mission territory” is already bearing promising fruit, as conversations with school principals, students and the priest chaplains themselves make clear.
The Catholic Spirit took a deeper look at what is unfolding at four of these archdiocesan high schools: Benilde-St. Margaret’s in St. Louis Park, Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Providence Academy in Plymouth and Chesterton Academy in Hopkins.
Father Mike Maloney: The new runner at Benilde-St. Margaret’s
Benilde-St. Margaret’s is a prime example of the benefits that can flow from this new emphasis on priest chaplains.
Benilde has always had a chaplain, and priests from neighboring parishes have also assisted with Mass and reconciliation. But this fall, Father Mike Maloney — Benilde’s new priest chaplain — will allocate half of his time to the position and be more present during the school day. Headmaster Dan Wrobleski, who is also new to Benilde this year, is certain that Father Maloney’s “regular, visible presence will transform our school, bringing a new injection of Catholic energy and identity.”
Father Maloney said he foresees not only an enhanced sacramental life for students — weekly Masses and the availability of regular confession — but plans to lead retreats, advise student groups, work with faculty, and offer informal spiritual direction to students.
He anticipates that conversations with students, who attend grades 6-12 at the school, about academic concerns may sometimes open a “side door” to discussions with a spiritual dimension. Father Maloney, who has a college degree in physics, is well positioned in this respect. “I love math, especially calculus, and physics,” he said. He hopes to be available to tutor math, work with students on engineering and robotics projects, and even participate in the school’s chess club.
At age 27, Father Maloney — who has siblings in high school — knows firsthand the spiritual struggles that today’s teenagers face. He plans to attend school sporting events and intends to run with the cross-country team. Students will be interested to learn that, as a seminarian in Rome, he participated in the annual “Turkey Trot” 5K around Vatican City — “the world’s only 5K to go around a sovereign nation.”
Wrobleski says he expects Father Maloney to make immediate connections with Benilde students that will pay dividends.
“High school students took a huge hit in their spiritual formation during the COVID(-19) years, and we are focused on helping them regain and strengthen that foundation,” Wrobleski remarked. “Father Maloney’s priestly presence in our school will play a key role in that effort.”
Wrobleski noted with a wink and a smile that Father Maloney has already demonstrated his dedication to the “Benilde family” based on a recent conversation. “He informed me that he would be flying to Rome to take a comprehensive exam for his graduate degree in biblical theology on Sept. 25,” recalled Wrobleski. “‘But don’t worry,’ he assured me, ‘I fly back from Rome on the 26th, in time for the Benilde football game that same night.’”
Father Michael Tix: Driving the team bus at Holy Angels
Unlike Father Maloney, Father Michael Tix is not new to the priest chaplain’s role. He has served as chaplain at Academy of Holy Angels high school for 24 years — the longest-serving high school chaplain in the archdiocese. Father Tix, who is also a member of the Catholic high school’s board of trustees and served a term as its chair, is beloved by generations of Holy Angels students. His photo sits in a place of honor in the oak-paneled parlor across from the 94-year-old school’s original entrance door.
Father Tix’s impact on Holy Angels is especially remarkable given his heavy responsibilities elsewhere. He serves as the archdiocesan vicar general and also parochial administrator for the tri-parish community of St. John the Baptist in Vermillion, St. Mathias in Hampton and St. Mary in New Trier. “My calendar can be complicated, with some days being more a triage process than what I’ve necessarily planned,” he said with a grin.
“Father Tix just has a larger battery than the rest of us,” quipped Heidi Foley, who has been Holy Angel’s principal for an equally impressive 25 years.
One might expect that, given this heavy load, Father Tix would treat his Holy Angels chaplain’s assignment as “sacraments only.” In fact, he believes some of his most important work is the informal connections he makes as he greets students in the morning and enters into hallway conversations.
“The students’ recognition of his holy example in day-to-day conversation is indispensable to the emerging strength of our students’ faith life,” remarked Foley.
The same is true with sports, where his involvement is legendary.
“Sports are an opportunity to emphasize that Catholic identity is not just about yourself, but about serving others,” Father Tix explained. “No team competes well if it’s just a collection of individuals focused on their own performance.”
Father Tix celebrates Mass for the football team before each game and even drove the team bus one time when they played in a state tournament game. He roams the sidelines during games, he said, striking up conversations with team members and their friends and family.
Recently a student mentioned to Father Tix that her volleyball team had a game in a few days. “I told her I might be able to make it, and before I knew it all the kids on the team and their parents anticipated I’d be there.” He recalled that they were overjoyed when he showed up, and it resulted in good chats with most of them at or after the game.
“I believe that’s how relationships are built, and it can advance my overriding goal in chaplaincy work — to help students find a real relationship with Christ through real relationships with people,” he said.
Like students, Holy Angels administrators and faculty understand Father Tix’s vital role. When he is in the building, Father Tix stops in to check on Foley. “I value the time he gives me to discuss the challenges of building a Catholic culture at a high school in 2025,” she said.
The ripples of a priest chaplain’s work are often unexpected and extend far. As a football player, Mason Garcia, who graduated from Holy Angels last spring, attended all Father Tix’s pre-game Masses and often conversed with him on the sidelines. Garcia said he believes Father Tix made it to every game in his four years at the school, “even if it was 10 degrees outside and the game was 30 miles away.”
“Only a true ‘father’ would have that kind of dedication,” he observed.
On Nov. 18, 2023, this “father” would become even more important to Garcia. That night, he took a hit to the head during a Holy Angels hockey game, which left him with a traumatic brain injury and unable to speak or move. “Father Tix was one of the first to visit me in the hospital, and he stayed and prayed with me for hours,” Garcia recalled. This visit, Garcia said, marked the turning point when he began to believe he had a chance of getting better.
Garcia has now fully recovered. Next August, he will marry another Holy Angels graduate, whose entire family — which includes several other Holy Angels alumni — loves Father Tix. The wedding will be celebrated at the Holy Angels chapel. Father Tix will officiate.
Father Connor McGinnis: Chaplaincy for ‘the long game’
“My job as a chaplain,” explained Father Connor McGinnis, chaplain at Providence Academy, a K-12 school, “is to exemplify and teach about the full Catholic life — to offer something higher to students that is complementary to, but set apart from, their focus on good grades, colleges and careers.” He described his work as “going for the long game” of a fruitful Catholic future for students.
Father McGinnis has a strong focus on making the sacraments as accessible as possible, including an offer to students of reconciliation on a drop-in basis for 20 minutes each morning. “I find that when confession is integrated into the school day and readily available down the hall, students are eager to avail themselves of it.”
Providence senior Mary Rachel Nelson agreed that students are much more likely to participate in the sacraments if they are just a “quick walk” down the hall. “And he’s always ready to go the extra mile,” she said, referring to Father McGinnis. For example, when she approached him about starting Eucharistic adoration, “he relentlessly pursued all the details of making it happen and made special arrangements to include adoration as a permanent part of our school day.”
Nelson praised Father McGinnis’ multi-faceted engagement with students. This has included frequent hallway conversations, class retreats and — she hears from others — even regular workouts in the weight room. “When we toured the Cathedral (of St. Paul) in St. Paul,” she recalled, “the students on the bus had prepared all kinds of questions they thought would be theological stumpers for Father McGinnis, including nuanced interpretations of the effect of plenary indulgences.”
“He fielded all the questions with ease and grace,” she said with a smile, “and answered each one in detail.”
Father McGinnis said he believes that his role as a teacher of moral theology at Providence significantly enhances his work as chaplain. “I teach about the integrated moral life — ‘What is happiness?’ and other central questions that high school students are eager to pursue,” he said. As a teacher, he builds personal relationships with the 20 or so individuals in his class, and through them reaches a much broader group of Providence students, he concludes.
Todd Flanders, headmaster at Providence, said he believes a priest chaplain is uniquely positioned to respond to the “growing spiritual hunger” he senses among students. Because the chaplain does not issue grades or otherwise pass judgment on students, “young people naturally tend to turn to him with many of their deepest concerns, spiritual and otherwise.”
Father McGinnis “understands that God is actively creating us at each stage — we are real right now, we are being created — and God is at work at every moment,” Flanders said. Students, he concluded, are not just sitting around waiting to become adults. They need to be formed, and Father McGinnis is a priest chaplain who understands that.
Father McGinnis is just one year into his assignment at Providence, and said more time is necessary to determine if he is achieving his goals. But he’s encouraged by what he’s seen to date.
For example, he recently heard from a Providence graduate who is now at college. During high school, the student had shown an increasing interest in the Catholic faith. The young man recounted that, in his senior year, he had prayed for a sign that he should take Catholicism more seriously. God had answered his prayer, he said, through a brief encounter with Father McGinnis in a Providence hallway. The former student reported that he is now taking significant steps toward embracing the Catholic faith more fully. “A small success,” concluded Father McGinnis, “I’ll take it.”
Father Brent Bowman: Working for ‘sticky faith’ at Chesterton Academy
Are archdiocesan high schools doing all they can on the faith front if they provide good instruction in theology and sacred Scripture?
Father Brent Bowman, chaplain at Catholic high school Chesterton Academy, said he believes it is a missed opportunity if they do not go further. Father Bowman said he strives to bring faith from “the head to the heart,” by teaching students “how to pray, apply theology, deal effectively with life’s challenges, and encounter Christ in a myriad of deeper ways.” He believes doing so will turn the tide of young people who are abandoning their faith after high school.
Matt Gerlach, Chesterton’s headmaster, agreed that fostering this “head to heart” process is the high school priest chaplain’s critical role.
Father Bowman described the process as encouraging a “sticky faith,” a term he said was coined by Father Joseph Johnson, chaplain for the Chesterton Schools Network, Chesterton Academy’s umbrella organization, and rector at the Cathedral of St. Paul. Father Bowman has worked to build this stickiness in several ways. First, he does so through daily Mass and confessions, for which there are always long lines, he said.
But there is much more, including rich, once-a-month spiritual formation sessions for students in each grade. In these gatherings, freshmen focus on going deeper with prayer and developing a personal relationship with Christ, explained Father Bowman. Sophomores talk about growing in emotional maturity, and juniors explore understanding daily and vocational discernment. The capstone is senior spiritual formation, which focuses on the “pursuit of spiritual greatness, understanding their gifting — discerning the calling of God upon their life.”
For Chesterton student Joe Bullard, a junior, these gatherings have been especially fruitful. He gave the example of a formation event last year when his class discussed “what went well last year and what can we improve on.” In the past, said Bullard, it has sometimes been as basic as “how to pray, how to build friendships in Christ, and how to place trust in others and assure them that you have their back and that none are excluded.”
There are also all-school retreats during Lent and Advent, and weekend class retreats that build on the faith formation themes.
One of Father Bowman’s greatest joys is offering 20-minute slots for “spiritual direction” on Monday and Friday afternoons, sessions which are particularly popular with students. Students sign up for these one-on-one discussions with Father Bowman focused on how to enhance their spiritual lives. Topics range from challenges with prayer to discerning the priesthood or consecrated life, said Father Bowman. The school views these spiritual direction sessions as so important that students are permitted to get out of class to attend.
Gerlach said he believes that Father Bowman’s unique background — he became a priest at age 44 after a highly successful business career — gives him particular credibility with high school students discerning their futures. They are impressed that he chose the priesthood after seeing so much of what the world has to offer.
“I didn’t become a priest because I hated business,” Father Bowman explained. “I had a desire to be used in a different way — to serve people in a manner that responded to the particular gifts for the Church God had given me.”
Father Bowman’s business acumen has also proven invaluable for the new headmaster as Gerlach helps lead Chesterton into a new chapter of institutional maturity.
“His ability to identify and integrate mission, goals and strategies — and then put it all on paper — has helped us all be more thoughtful in our planning to grow disciples,” said Gerlach. Not surprisingly, Father Bowman brings this skill set to his faith formation work at Chesterton Academy as well. He is mapping out a campus ministry strategy that will guide Chesterton Academy and, at the same time, support Father Johnson in building out a comprehensive Spiritual Formation Program for the 70-plus Chesterton schools around the world.
While Father Bowman makes powerful contributions to Chesterton Academy’s overall spiritual life, the most memorable gifts sometimes flow from what at first glance might seem to be small gestures. Last winter, Bullard attended a retreat led by Father Bowman and mentioned that he looked forward to making a confession when time and circumstances allowed. Without a moment’s hesitation, Father Bowman responded, “Let’s step outside and do this right now.”
The two went out the door, and Father Bowman heard Bullard’s confession in a blinding snowstorm.
What does the future hold for priest chaplains?
There is still much to be done to increase the presence of priest chaplains in archdiocesan high schools, remarked Slattery. One step he would like to prioritize is strengthening fraternity among the high school priest chaplains, so that they can share the practical wisdom they are gaining.
Slattery added that more can also be done to ensure that parish priests and laypeople understand the critical role of priest chaplains. He concluded that the stakes are high. “The mission of high school priest chaplains is essential to seeking a vibrant Catholicism in our young adults,” he said, “and in building a vibrant Catholic culture in our parishes in the future.”
