For a priest who never expected to focus his ministry on vocations, Father Michael Romano has become a leading figure in shaping the next generation of Catholic clergy – and now he’ll do it from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, as rector of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.
The Diocese of Camden priest has been appointed to lead the seminary in Emmitsburg, which serves 26 partner dioceses across the United States and beyond. After six years in Rome as coordinator of admissions at the Pontifical North American College (NAC), Father Romano will return to the mid-Atlantic this summer to take the helm at the second-oldest and largest Catholic seminary in the United States.
In a May 8 phone interview, conducted just hours before U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV, Father Romano shared his hopes for the new role.
As rector, he’ll step more fully into a pastoral mission that has become central to his vocation: walking with men as they discern and prepare for the priesthood.
Focusing on vocations, he admitted, wasn’t something he ever saw coming.
“The beautiful thing is that bishops recognize skills and talents in us that we don’t see in ourselves,” he said of his now three assignments focused on vocations. “If you give yourself to it, you can flourish.”
Ordained in 2007, Father Romano served in two Camden diocese parishes and as chaplain at Paul VI High School in Haddon Township, N.J., from 2009 to 2013. He began serving as director of vocations and seminarians in 2011, holding that post until 2019. After five years as priest secretary to the bishop of Camden, he moved to Rome in 2019 for his current position at the NAC.
At the NAC – which regularly hosts visiting bishops and has, in recent weeks, housed U.S. cardinals gathered in Rome for the papal transition – Father Romano has seen firsthand the challenges and hopes of priestly formation in a global church. In his work with seminarians, he’s noticed encouraging shifts in tone and openness among today’s candidates.
“I see a level of authenticity, honesty and transparency that was not so present when I was a seminarian,” he said. He believes that may be, in part, due to the context in which young men grew up – amid the U.S. church’s reckoning with clergy abuse scandals.
“By opening themselves, … the growth they experience is a beautiful thing to watch,” he said. “These are men who want to be ministers of mercy.”
Though born in Pennsylvania, Father Romano moved to New Jersey as a child and has remained connected to the region throughout his life. He earned his undergraduate degree at St. Charles Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., and completed further theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at the Lateran University in Rome.
Returning to the U.S. means not only engaging seminarians in a more localized setting, but also being closer to family – “under a three-hour drive, not across an ocean with time zone differences.”
While he said he loves being in a major city where one can walk everywhere without need of a car, the last few weeks in Rome with all the pope-related activity have reminded him that he “cannot wait to be in a normal place to live.”
Situated in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Mount St. Mary’s partners with dioceses as close as Washington, D.C., and as far-flung as Colorado Springs, Colo., and Miao, India. Two seminarians from the Diocese of Kumbo, Cameroon, are currently cosponsored by their home diocese and the Diocese of Arlington, Va.
There were 148 seminarians enrolled in the spring semester of 2025, including 17 from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Five more will return in the fall after concluding their pastoral year. Twenty-six seminarians graduated May 2.
Read More Colleges
Copyright © 2025 Catholic Review Media
English
Spanish