Sulpician Father Shawn Gould received the university’s symbols of office – a mace and a chain – during his installation Mass Sept. 2 as the fourth president of St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park.
Representing “the burden of the administration and this institution,” the chain and mace, “are not light,” Father Gould said in his remarks to the congregation. “With your help, and especially the love of the Holy Spirit, I hope that I will not fail to wear them.”
Father Gould admitted to the crowd at a dinner following the installation that upon receiving the chain of office and mace, his thoughts went to the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy, France, which depicts a battle scene and a “fascinating” figure “whacking people on the head” with a mace.
“You know he is a bishop because he has his miter on,” Father Gould said. While it once was an honor for clerics to honor their commitment to God and to the church to battle by not drawing bladed weapons, “the church doesn’t allow this anymore,” Father Gould said. Instead, “through kind encouragements, through stern looks and formation meetings, we will bring you to God,” he said to laughter.
Archbishop William E. Lori celebrated the Mass, calling upon God “to pour forth his grace on Father Gould as he leads, guides and serves this institution in the years ahead.”
The archbishop noted that Father Gould “must dedicate the vast majority of his waking hours” to the work of formation, as “those who aspire to be priests and those who aspire to serve God’s people must undergo a lengthy journey of conversion and transformation.”
During the Mass, Father Gould said he was “very conscious of the justifiably high expectations” placed on him in leading St. Mary’s.
“St. Mary’s has a long and distinguished history,” Father Gould said. “I’m committed to honoring her legacy and advancing this venerable institution.”
Founded in 1791 by the Sulpician Fathers from France, St. Mary’s Seminary is the oldest Catholic seminary in the United States.
Bishop Douglas Lucia of the Archdiocese of Syracuse, N.Y., and more than 20 priests attended the Mass and the reception and dinner that followed.
“This is a moment of great promise for St. Mary’s,” said Sulpician Father Daniel Moore, provincial superior, in his remarks at the dinner. “Father Shawn Gould … brings a deep love for the priesthood, a genuine pastoral heart and a virtuous apostolic vision. Under his leadership, St. Mary’s will continue to flourish.”
Matthew Dugandzic, academic dean at St. Mary’s Seminary, said he “couldn’t be happier” with the appointment. He noted that he and Father Gould were faculty members together before Father Gould left to pursue his doctoral studies. “I look forward to his new leadership and his vision for the seminary,” Dugandzic said.
At the reception, Archbishop Lori said he was “delighted” to preside over Father Gould’s installation.
“I’ve gotten to know him well,” Lori said. “I think he is going to be a wonderful leader for St. Mary’s and a wonderful role model for future priests and all those who lead the church.”
Before beginning his current role, Father Gould served as director of the McGivney Propaedeutic House on Paca Street in Baltimore starting in 2024. He previously served on the faculty of St. Mary’s Seminary from 2018 to 2021 as an assistant professor of systematic theology, spiritual director and member of the formation faculty.
Father Gould is a convert to the Catholic faith, a journey he described in detail in an interview with OSV News ahead of his installation.
“I did not grow up in the Catholic Church,” he told OSV News, explaining that he was raised in the Reformed Church in America and the Presbyterian Church in Grand Haven, Mich.. By high school, he said, “I functionally became an atheist or an agnostic,” skeptical that religious belief was anything more than an accident of “which family you happened to grow up in.”
That began to change at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, where he played piccolo in the marching band and, through friendships with Catholic classmates, found that “having a peer group of very smart people who were believing undermined my assumption that intelligent people are non-believers.”
He was received into the Catholic Church in 2002, a few years after graduating and while working as a corporate real estate lawyer, drawn in part by his conviction that “the Eucharist is the most amazing thing ever – that God himself is here in a special way.”
He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2010 and has been a member of the Society of St. Sulpice since 2021.
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Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org
Also see: Father Gould committed to mission as new rector at St. Mary’s Seminary
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