Baltimore native Father Michael Martin to take helm of Charlotte diocese

It seems as if former administrators of Archbishop Curley High School are carving out quite a niche in the southeastern United States.

Conventual Franciscan Father Michael T. Martin became the first graduate of the Northeast Baltimore High School named a bishop and the second former principal of the school to take the reins of one of the region’s major dioceses.

On April 9, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Peter J. Jugis, 67, from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., for health reasons and appointed Father Martin, 62, as his successor.

Bishop-designate Martin, a Baltimore native, is a member of the Conventual Franciscan Province of Our Lady of the Angels and currently serves as pastor at St. Philip Benizi Church in Jonesboro, Ga.

He will be ordained and installed as the fifth Bishop of Charlotte May 29 at St. Mark Catholic Church in Huntersville.

“I am amazed and humbled that the Holy Father has faith in me to call me to serve the people of Western North Carolina,” Bishop-designate Martin said in a statement published on the Diocese of Charlotte’s website. “I am excited to get to know you and to listen to the ways in which together we can respond to the call of the Holy Spirit to be disciples of Jesus.”

The diocese introduced Bishop-designate Martin at a news conference Tuesday morning.

He follows in the footsteps of Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, a former Curley principal who is the Archbishop of Atlanta.

“I have known Father Martin as a student, teacher and colleague. He is a devoted priest and will be a good shepherd for the Diocese of Charlotte,” Archbishop Hartmayer said.

Father Martin is a graduate of the now-closed Most Precious Blood School in Northeast Baltimore and a 1979 graduate of Archbishop Curley High School.

The news was greeted with joy at Archbishop Curley.

“It’s exciting news,” said Archbishop Curley President Conventual Franciscan Father Donald Gryzmski. “It’s an honor that Pope Francis has chosen one of our own to be a bishop. I think the appointment says a lot about how Curley prepares leaders.

“I’m sure his time here prepared him well, because he also involved himself heavily in the archdiocese,” he said. 

Father Martin was ordained in 1989 after entering the Franciscan novitiate in Ellicott City. He returned to Archbishop Curley in 1994, serving as admissions director and religion teacher while also coaching basketball for two seasons.

In 1996, he was named principal of his Sinclair Lane alma mater at age 32. Promoted to president in 2001, he led a $7 million capital campaign and helped rebuild the school’s enrollment back to nearly 600 students after the school struggled in that area in the early 1990s.

He also served on several committees for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, including the Blue Ribbon Committee on Catholic Schools.

He left Baltimore to serve as director of Duke University’s Catholic Center from 2010 to 2022. In 2022, his order assigned him to ministry in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

He rejoins Archbishop Hartmayer as a former Archbishop Curley administrator now leading a major diocese in the southeastern United States. Archbishop Hartmayer, who served at Curley from 1979 to 1988, was installed as archbishop of Atlanta in 2020. He taught at Curley for six years before serving as principal from 1985 to 1988. 

Archbishop Hartmayer, also a Conventual Franciscan, said Bishop-designate Martin is a devoted priest and will be a wonderful shepherd for the Diocese of Charlotte.

“I believe Pope Francis has made an excellent choice for the Church of Charlotte,” said the archbishop, who also leads the Catholic Church’s three-state province of Georgia and the Carolinas. The newly named bishop “is a man who is deeply in love with Jesus, and he is a faithful son of St. Francis of Assisi,” the archbishop said in a statement.

“He comes to the Diocese of Charlotte with many gifts and a wealth of experience, and a love for God’s people. I believe he will be a bishop who listens and leads,” he added.

Bishop Jugis said it has been a delight to meet and talk with his successor.

“As difficult as it is for me to leave this position that I love, I am confident that God has a plan in bringing us Bishop-elect Martin, and I will do everything I can to support his ministry,” he said.

“It has truly been the joy of a lifetime to serve as bishop for the people of our diocese,” he continued, “and I believe Bishop-elect Martin will find that to be true for him as he gets to know the faithful of our diocese and sees firsthand our many ministries that are dedicated to sharing the love of Christ in our communities.”

During the past 20 years, Bishop Jugis has led the diocese through unprecedented growth, particularly in its vocations program and schools.

The Diocese of Charlotte covers 20,470 square miles in the state of North Carolina, and has 546,370 Catholics out of a total population of more than 5.5 million.

Bishop Jugis, who headed the Charlotte diocese since 2003, is 67, eight years younger than the age at which canon law requires bishops to submit their resignation to the pope. A native of Charlotte, he was appointed the fourth bishop of the diocese by St. John Paul II Aug. 1, 2003. He was ordained a bishop and installed as Charlotte’s shepherd Oct. 24, 2003.

The resignation and appointment were publicized in Washington April 9 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

At Curley, Father Grzmyski said the appointment was announced to the faculty and staff in the morning with plans to relay the news to the student body later in the day.

“It never hurts to hear the word ‘Curley,’” Father Grzymski said of the school’s notoriety in ecclesiastical ranks.

OSV News contributed to this story.

Email Gerry Jackson at gjackson@CatholicReview.org

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