Catholic Chaplaincy Staff

I grew up in a large household in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with my parents, my grandmother, six younger siblings, and a menagerie of dogs, cats, parakeets, guinea pigs, fish, turtles, and a couple of exotic spiders and reptiles.  I love the snow and cold, so Minnesota was the perfect place for me to grow up. 

During college I entered St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota and became a Benedictine monk.  While preparing for the priesthood, I taught music at St. John’s University.  I was ordained for the abbey in 1981.  I later earned a doctorate at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and expected to spend my life teaching music and growing in the monastic life.  God had other plans. 

After some serious discernment, I left St. John’s and spent five years teaching music at Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest, Illinois, and directing its study abroad program in the U.K.   After further discernment, I was received into the Roman Catholic diocese of Rochester, New York, in 1998.  Since then, I have served the Church as a parochial vicar, a pastor, and a campus minister.  Campus ministry has been my primary work since 2005.  In 2019, the bishop invited me to lead the Ithaca College Catholic Community as well as the Cornell Catholic Community. 

In every position, celebrating the Sacraments has been my deepest joy.  I’m also energized by conversations with young adults as they discern God’s will and grow into mature Christians.  Some years back I was trained as a spiritual director to be better prepared for these conversations.  

In my spare time I enjoy international travel, working on my family tree (I can trace ancestors back to the Norman Conquest), and reading. 

I look forward to meeting you and talking about whatever is on your mind and heart.  The best way to contact me is through the website calendly.com/fatherdaniel. 

I oversee the community's spiritual formation, liturgical life, and sacramental preparation. This includes the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) at Cornell and Ithaca College, process that leads to the sacraments of initiation into the Catholic Church; the Confirmation preparation program; individual pastoral counseling and discernment; retreats; and Bible study.

I look forward to sharing my experience navigating Cornell and Ithaca College, having been a member of faculty at both institutions and a graduate student at Cornell. I also welcome the opportunity to share my experience of married life, vocational discernment, and balancing academic life with real life.

I love discussing the beauty and depth of Catholic theology, especially as it is expressed in the sacred liturgy: the coherence, breadth, and comprehensiveness of Catholic teaching are reflections of God's own perfect beauty.