New Atlanta archbishop has deep roots in Baltimore

Atlanta Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer speaks with a student after classes in a photo from Archbishop Curley High School’s yearbook. (Courtesy Archbishop Curley High School)

Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer, a Conventual Franciscan priest tapped by Pope Francis March 5 to lead the Archdiocese of Atlanta, spent the early years of his ministry in the Baltimore area, serving as a religion teacher, guidance counselor and later principal of Archbishop Curley High School in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Conventual Franciscan Father Donald Grzymski, president of Archbishop Curley High School, attended the seminary with Archbishop Hartmayer in Massachusetts and later worked with him for seven years at Curley.

“I think he always wanted to help people and minister to them. And certainly, being the guidance counselor is a great way of doing that,” Father Grzymski said. “He enjoyed working with young men both on their academic goals, but also on any personal issues that they may have to deal with.”

Pete Eibner, a 1988 Curley graduate, told the Catholic Review that Archbishop Hartmayer “was a major influence getting my troubled youth on the right trajectory.”

In a Facebook post, he noted that the former principal kept him at the school “when most people would have sent me out.”

“I’m forever grateful for the second opportunity (and probably the 3rd and 4th) that he gave me,” said Eibner, who is the head soccer coach at Perry Hall High School. “Atlanta is very lucky to have him.”

Most of all, Father Grzymski said Archbishop Hartmayer was unflappable.

“Not many things rattled him, or at least that he would show, and he was so calm,” Father Grzymski said. “He’s very approachable. He’s very affable. You know, he’s virtually always smiling. And I think it’s those qualities that he was recognized for.”

Archbishop Hartmayer, 68, served as principal of the East Baltimore school from 1985 to 1988. Father Grzymski said Archbishop Hartmayer helped revive the school’s music program and oversaw the addition of the school’s music room, which was later expanded. To this day, the school boasts a renowned jazz band.

Father Grzymski said Archbishop Hartmayer also realized early on the need for outside fund-raising before it was standard practice for Catholic high schools, helping to keep Curley’s finances secure.

Atlanta Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer is seen in an Archbishop Curley High School yearbook photo. Hartmayer served as a teacher, guidance counselor and later principal at the East Baltimore school during the late 1970s and 1980s. (Courtesy Archbishop Curley High School)

“He was always looking towards the future,” Father Grzymski said.

Aside from his time at Curley, Archbishop Hartmayer’s ties to Maryland go further back.

After Archbishop Hartmayer graduated from Cardinal O’Hara High School in Tonawanda, New York, he joined the Conventual Franciscan Friars at their Novitiate of St. Joseph Cupertino in Ellicott City. He professed his simple vows there on Aug. 15, 1970, according to The Georgia Bulletin.

After Curley, Archbishop Hartmayer would go on to serve as a principal for two high schools in New York state, a parish priest in Jonesboro, Ga. and then finally as bishop of Savanah, Ga.

Father Grymski said the skills Archbishop Hartmayer honed at Curley – including patience, listening and managing budgets — will serve him well in his new role ministering to Atlanta’s 1.2 million Catholics.

Cheryl Jose, a foreign language teacher at Archbishop Curley, worked with Archbishop Hartmayer in the 1980s and remembered his strong rapport with the students.

“They felt like they could joke with him and talk with him even it was a serious discussion that they needed to have,” Jose said. “He always had an open-door policy. You could go and talk to him with about just about anything.”

Archbishop Hartmayer succeeds Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, who was Atlanta’s archbishop from 2005 until he was appointed to head the Archdiocese of Washington in 2019.

The appointment was announced March 5 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Archbishop Hartmayer has served as Savannah’s 14th bishop since Pope Benedict XVI appointed him to head that diocese July 19, 2011.

In Atlanta, Auxiliary Bishop Joel M. Konzen has been serving as administrator of the Archdiocese of Atlanta since Archbishop Gregory’s appointment to Washington.

Archbishop Hartmayer will be installed as Atlanta’s archbishop May 6 at St. Peter Chanel Church in Roswell, Georgia.

It will be something of a homecoming for him as he was the pastor of St. John Vianney Parish in Lithia Springs, Georgia, in the archdiocese at the time of his appointment to head the Diocese of Savannah. Immediately prior to that, he was the pastor of St. Philip Benizi Parish in Jonesboro, Georgia, for 15 years.

Archbishop Hartmayer also has three master’s degrees: in divinity from St. Anthony-on-Hudson in Rensselaer, New York, in pastoral counseling from Emmanuel College in Boston and in education from Boston College.

Email Tim Swift at tswift@catholicreview.org