I was born on October 22, 1965 and grew up in Amsterdam, NY, the sixth of seven children and the grandson of Italian immigrants. I went to public schools and graduated from Amsterdam High School in 1984 and the University of New Hampshire in 1988 with a double major in Political Science and International Relations.
I spent my junior year of college in Urbino, Italy studying the Italian language, history, and art. After graduating from college, I spent another year in Italy on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship at the University of Padua taking classes in the Political Science Department. Upon returning to the United States, I taught 8th Grade Social Studies at the Amsterdam Middle School for a semester and then worked as a newspaper reporter for the Amsterdam Recorder for a year.
In January 1991, I returned to Italy to teach English for eight months before enrolling in a PhD Program in Political Science at the City University of New York in Manhattan that fall. I spent five years working on the doctorate – finishing the coursework and comprehensive exams, but not the dissertation – before moving to Albany in September 1996 to work as a legislative aide in the New York State Senate for five years.
It was during my time in politics that I began discerning a vocation to the priesthood, realizing that the plans I had for my life might not be the same as God’s plans. In August 2001, I decided to leave everything behind when I entered St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, MD to see if God was, in fact, calling me to the priesthood. I served in several different parishes in the Albany Diocese during my time in seminary formation: Northern Points Cluster in Hague, Chestertown, and North Creek; St. Henry’s in Averill Park; St. James in Albany; and St. Mary’s in Ballston Spa. I also worked as a hospital chaplain at Albany Medical Center for a summer.
It was a long and difficult journey of six years before I was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Howard Hubbard on June 9, 2007 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, along with my classmates Fr. Michael Cambi and Fr. Tom Lawless.
My first assignment was at Christ the King Parish in Guilderland from July 2007 to January 2010. I was then assigned as pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Margaretville until May 2013, when Bishop Hubbard appointed me to serve as pastor at Annunciation and Queen of Apostles.