Spiritual Life

Chaplain Profiles
Chapel Schedule

At the heart of the life of Christendom College is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, offered two to three times daily, Monday through Friday, and at least once a day Saturday and Sunday at the Chapel of Christ the King. The main College weekday liturgy is at 11:30 a.m. At this hour there are no conflicting classes or other events scheduled; the priority is to allow students, staff, and faculty the opportunity to unite themselves with the Universal Church in prayer. A second Mass is offered at 7:30 a.m. weekdays. The College liturgies are noted for their solemn and dignified character, and the chaplains make themselves readily available for the sacrament of penance, personal conferences, and spiritual direction.

The Mass is offered according to the Extraordinary Form on Tuesday mornings at 7:30 a.m, and Mondays and Thursday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. All other Masses are offered according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Catholic devotions and pious works flourish at Christendom in all their appropriate richnessand diversity. The College offers, in addition to daily rosary and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a variety of occasional devotions. Heeding the call of Pope John Paul the Great to a new evangelization, the College celebrates feast days with processions, solemn Masses, and banquets. Many students also engage in charitable works. Of particular note is the strong, student-organized, pro-life presence at the College, led by Shield of Roses, which sponsors weekly prayer vigils at abortion clinics in the Washington, DC, area. And every year the students charter several coaches so that as a body they can join the March for Life, which they proudly led on two different occasions.

All of this encourages a community life which is fruitful for individual students and for the institution as a whole. The intellectual work of the College is informed by prayer and humility. All who seek it here recognize that the Truth must be sought with a spirit of submission and with wonder, with careful study, in calm reflection. While there is plenty of bustle in the life of the College, there also is time for quiet, for pondering the eternal, and for gaining wisdom and strength in so doing.

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Chaplain Profiles

The Chaplains are essential to the College community--without them, the College could not thrive or achieve its end of drawing students into a deeper life in Christ.

Currently there are three resident Chaplains. The Chaplains offer daily Mass and Confession, week-day exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, monthly First Friday observances which include all-night vigils before the Blessed Sacrament, student retreats, and other seasonal and occasional liturgical observances.

Fr. Dan Gee is the Head Chaplain, assigned to the College by Arlington Diocese’s Bishop Paul Loverde in Fall of 2008. Fr. Gee, ordained in 1995, spent many years in parish work before his 2003 assignment to Banica in the Dominican Republic. Now, after many years in missionary territory, Fr. Gee is happy to be back in the US where he can spend time helping to guide Christendom students in their pursuit of holiness.

Fr. William Fitzgerald, O.Praem was born at Ryde, in Sydney, Australia in June 1954, and is the youngest of three boys. Much of his elementary and secondary schooling was at the Cathedral Choir School in Sydney staffed by the Irish Christian Brothers. At the Cathedral School he learned the Gregorian and Polyphonic repertoire of the Cathedral Choir, the oldest musical institution in Australia.  He also took lessons in piano and organ playing and served as Deputy Cathedral Organist for some months after graduating from High School and before entering Religious Life.  In 1972 he entered the Irish Canonry of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (Norbertines), founded by St, Norbert of Xanten in 1120 in France. His novitiate and seminary studies were in Australia. He professed Solemn Vows in 1978, and in 1979 was awarded the Bachelor of Theology Degree and he became the first Australian to be ordained a priest in the Norbertine Order. Over the next 8 years, Father William taught in the Order’s High School in Perth Western Australia and served in the Priory there as Novice Master and as Pastor in two of the Order’s Parishes. In 1987 Father was appointed to Holy Trinity Abbey at Ballyjamesduff in Co. Cavan, Eire, where he served as Rector of the Abbey Church, Cantor, and Formation Director. After completing the Licentiate in Theology at Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the Angelicum) in 1991, he returned to Australia for a further 6 years serving in Parish Work, High School Chaplaincy, and Seminary Teaching. At the invitation of the Nashville Dominican Sisters and with his Norbertine home base thereafter at Saint Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, CA, Fr. William came to the United States in January 1997. In Nashville, Father was appointed Chaplain at the Dominican Campus and he taught Theology at Aquinas College.  Invited to the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, Father served there as Director of Liturgy and Instructor in Liturgy and Homiletics for 5 years. In 2003, Bishop Roger Foys, the new Bishop of Covington, KY invited Fr. William to come to the Diocese as Director of Liturgy for the Diocese and the Cathedral Basilica. During 5 years in Covington Diocese, he also served as Chaplain to the Sisters of St. Joseph the Worker, Chaplain and Religion Teacher at Covington Catholic High School and as a Spiritual Director for Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati. In 2007 negotiations commenced between Christendom College and the Right Reverend Abbot Eugene Hayes O.Praem, of St. Michael’s Abbey, to provide a Norbertine priest as an associate chaplain for the academic year at Christendom College. In August 2008 Fr. William arrived as the first Norbertine priest from St. Michael’s Abbey to provide this service to the College.

Fr. Seamus O'Kielty was born in County Mayo, Ireland, and is the eighth child of ten. He underwent seminary training in England, Belgium, Germany, and Scotland, and was ordained a Priest in 1954. Father spent the next eleven years as a bush missionary in Tanganyika/Burundi. In 1965, he came to America, where he was lent to the Paterson Diocese to teach high school. In 1966, he served in the Missions in Bolivia, where he became temporary chaplain with the Bolivian Army during the Che Guevara emergency. While there, he set up a catechetical program to better evangelize the Aymara Indians by training more than a hundred catechists, despite opposition from the government. Fr. O'Kielty later attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ, where he received his M.A. in education, and became certified by the state as an accredited teacher of German, French, and Spanish. Father is still fluent in Spanish and French, rusty in Italian, German, Kirundi, Irish and Swahili; reads Latin and Greek, but has almost forgotten all Aymara Bolivian, Japanese, Flemish and Kihaya. He received his M.A. in Linguistics at New York University, and became a Ph.D. candidate. In 1974, he returned to Burundi after hearing there was a critical priest shortage after the massacres, and became a Parish Pastor replacing the Hutu priests who were killed. In 1979, Father was inducted into the Navy as a Chaplain. He completed Arctic Survival and Skiing Training in the Arctic Circle in Norway. He later qualified as expert marksman with pistol and M16. He did Jungle Fighting Training and was awarded Sea Service Deployment medals, and the Navy Achievement Medal, the Navy Comendation Medal, and the Meritorious Service Medal. He later enrolled in the Ph.D. Philosophy Program at Fordham University and retired in 1995. Since then, Father was adjunct professor at Farleigh Dickinson University's School of Education. He later returned to the Paterson Diocese, and due to the acute shortage of priests in the areas, Father has been assisting the local parishes, until 2002, when he came to Christendom.

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