AB OUT THE F RA NC I S CA N F R I A R S O F T H E H O LY S P I R I T
The Franciscan Friars of the Holy Spirit
began when seven men were received by
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted in the Diocese
of Phoenix.
They arrived in Phoenix on May 13,
2016, led by the Holy Spirit to evangelize
anew in the southwestern United States
as Franciscan missionaries. They present-
ed themselves to Bishop Olmsted, who
blessed them and sent them to inhabit
an abandoned convent on the Gila River
Indian Reservation. They spent their first
Arizona summer in the convent, praying
and bonding as a community to prepare
for the work ahead.
The old mission church where they now
live was still attended by a handful of faith-
ful people who were ardently praying for
Franciscan priests to return to the parish
and to once again be their spiritual fathers.
Once Franciscan Friars of the Holy Spirit
began offering the Mass in the mission
church that autumn, the people came in
crowds, smiling and applauding because
“the padres have returned!”
They were greeted similarly at the oth-
er nine mission churches that Bishop Ol-
msted entrusted to their care.
The Franciscan Friars of the Holy Spirit
began their apostolic works on October
1, 2015, when Fr. Antony Tinker, FHS, was
made the administrator of Native American
Ministry in the Diocese of Phoenix. That
same day, Fr. Joseph Francis Lepage, FHS,
began to develop a Catholic Newman Cen-
ter at Grand Canyon University, a private
Christian university which is rapidly ex-
panding in Phoenix.
The Statutes of the Franciscan Friars
of the Holy Spirit were complete in May
2016, promulgated on June 29, 2016, and
the community was established as a Cleri-
cal Public Association of the Faithful. The
five priest friars were incardinated into the
Diocese of Phoenix, and the seven mem-
bers of the Franciscan Friars of Holy Spirit
made promises of poverty, obedience, and
chastity to Bishop Olmsted on July 2, 2016.
Fr. Athanasius, left, and Bro. Peter Teresa, seen
here walking through historic Corktown, the
oldest neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan.
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