Fr. Clint McDonell, left,
and Fr. Ryan Ford are
happy to return to their
alma mater to assist in the
formation of tomorrow’s
priests-evangelists. “Those
were blessed times,” Father Ford recalls about his
tenure as a seminarian.
Welcome Back, Fathers
Daniel Gallio
T
wo popular graduates
of Sacred Heart have
returned “home” to the seminary to be a part of the faculty and the formation team.
“And I’m happy to be back,”
says Fr. Clint McDonell,
a 2008 Master of Divinity
graduate and priest of the
Archdiocese of Detroit. “It is
a great joy to be able to call
Sacred Heart home again.”
Fr. McDonell and Fr. Ryan Ford of the
Diocese of Marquette are familiar faces to
the seminary community. Both were greeted
with applause and well-wishing when Monsignor Lajiness announced their appointments
at the annual “Rector’s Address” community
gathering on August 26. Father Ford spent
six years at Sacred Heart, from 2005 until
2011, earning an undergraduate degree and
his Master of Divinity. Father McDonell’s sixyear tenure as an undergraduate and graduate seminarian began in 2002.
Both men will reside at Sacred Heart while
they work. They will lend their talents on the
Seminarian Formation Team, hearing con-
24
fessions, providing spiritual direction, and
giving general human encouragement to college and graduate-level seminaria