Prodigal son to priest

Archbishop William E. Lori will ordain five men to the priesthood June 21 at 10 a.m. at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland. The following is a profile of one of those future priests. New profiles of the other new priests will be added to the Catholic Review site daily from June 15 to June 20. Click here to read them.

In the eyes of the world, Deacon James “Jamie” Lancelotta is the unlikeliest candidate for the priesthood.

The 53-year-old Baltimore native has wrestled with alcoholism and a gambling addiction. He once lived with his fiancée and hasn’t always followed the teachings of the Catholic Church. There were times he didn’t attend Mass at all, though a part of him always held on to the faith of his childhood.

Professionally, the parishioner of St. Joseph Monastery in Irvington built a strong career in hospitality. He worked as an executive chef or restaurant manager in places ranging from a dude ranch in Colorado to Baltimore’s popular Grilled Cheese & Co., where he helped grow the business to five locations as managing partner. Despite his success, however, he was restless. 

Nine years ago, at a time when he felt “completely gone and shattered,” Deacon Lancelotta attended the funeral of his great-aunt, School Sister of Notre Dame Marie Carl Horn, at Villa Assumpta in Baltimore. Internally, he said, he “let loose on God.”

“I was mad at myself more than anything else, but also mad at God,” recalled Deacon Lancelotta, an alumnus of Trinity School in Ellicott City and Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington who studied culinary arts at Baltimore International College.

Improbably, he heard an interior voice. He felt that God was telling him he had been called to a religious life all along. It was a path meant for him, Deacon Lancelotta said, but one he had spent years avoiding.

“I didn’t tell anybody because I really thought I was insane,” remembered Deacon Lancelotta, part of a deeply rooted Catholic family in Baltimore. He is the great-grand nephew of Frank Lancelotta, founder of Our Lady’s Center in Ellicott City.

He was eventually accepted as a seminarian and assigned to St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park.

Deacon Lancelotta, who has served his diaconal year at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland, believes his real-world experiences will help him be a priest who can minister to others in a pastoral way.

“It makes me very relatable with people,” said Deacon Lancelotta, who has been sober since 2013. “I understand their struggles.”

As a priest, Deacon Lancelotta hopes to be a conduit of God’s mercy. He recalled especially feeling God’s mercy when he walked through the holy doors of the Shrine of St. Anthony in Ellicott City in 2016 during the Jubilee of Mercy.

“When I realized that I was completely powerless and completely at God’s mercy is when I finally started to heal,” he said.

The future priest, who was baptized at St. Mark in Catonsville and attended a variety of parishes growing up, said God can take a person’s brokenness and use it, if that person lets him.

“He uses it to make us even more beautiful and more strong, and then that radiates out to other people, ” said Deacon Lancelotta, who has had pastoral assignments at Charlestown Retirement Community, Catonsville; St. Peter Claver/St. Pius V/St. Gregory the Great, Baltimore; Franciscan Center, Baltimore; St. Joseph Monastery Parish; St. Joseph, Cockeysville; and the Pastorate of St. Agnes, Catonsville, and St. William of York, Baltimore.

Excited to accompany people in their faith walk, he compared Jesus to an electrical plant and everyone else as the wires attached to the plant.

“You need those wires to bring the love of Christ to other people and you can’t let those wires snap,” he said. “They are nothing without Christ generating that power – and so we’re nothing without the power of Christ.”

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

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