CHARLOTTE — Father Richard Sutter has been appointed pastor at St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte after Father Frank O'Rourke recently announced his retirement.
Father Sutter has served as served as parochial administrator at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Waynesville and Immaculate Conception Mission in Canton since 2018.
Father Sutter is a 1991 graduate of Belmont Abbey College. He served in the U.S. Army before entering the seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in 2009.
Father Sutter served as chaplain of Christian Brothers' School in New Orleans, chaplain of Acadian Oaks Catholic Youth Retreat Center in Lafayette and Conquest Boys Club Youth Section Director for the state of Louisiana.
He moved to the Archdiocese of Atlanta in 2011, where for three years he served as chaplain at Pinecrest Academy High School and five years as the Catholic chaplain for the Atlanta Braves.
Father Sutter's cousin is a priest with the Savannah diocese, so in 2014 he asked to discern some time there where he served from 2014 to 2016 as chaplain of Aquinas High School in Augusta, Ga.
In 2016, Father Sutter spent several months of discernment at Belmont Abbey, during which time he said he sensed a call to serve in the Charlotte diocese.
He was in residence at St. Patrick Cathedral prior to serving the Waynesville parish. Father Sutter will be one of the Teen Track speakers at the upcoming Eucharistic Congress Sept. 7.
Father O'Rourke was ordained by the late Bishop Michael J. Begley, the first bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte, at St. Ann Church for the Feast of Christ the King Sunday, Nov. 23, 1975. He is one of the first 10 priests ordained to serve the Charlotte diocese since it was established Jan. 12, 1972.
— Catholic News Herald
CHARLOTTE — Two more graduates from St. Joseph College Seminary will begin formal studies towards priestly formation at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary at the Athenaeum in Cincinnati, Ohio, this fall.
Seminarians Christopher Brock and Peter Rusciolelli are the second set of seminarians to graduate since the college seminary was founded in 2016.
“I am very excited for my transition to major seminary,” Brock said. “I have heard many good things from my brother seminarians who have completed their first year at the Athenaeum, and I am excited to go and join them.”
Brock“I am looking forward to moving into my theology studies because it is a large step closer to my ordination as a priest,” said Rusciolelli. “It is exciting to see the reality come closer and closer so dramatically, as it will only continue to do so over the next couple of years. I look forward to going through candidacy, being installed as a lector and acolyte, ordained a transitional deacon – all for the end of following Our Lord’s call and, God willing, being ordained a priest.”
Both say the college seminary experience has been vital in preparing them for continued formation towards the priesthood.
“My time in college seminary has been instrumental in helping me to build character and grow in virtue, as well as recognize where my weaknesses are,” Brock said. “Academically, the education in philosophy I got in college seminary should provide me with the background and tools that I need to study theology.”
“Most importantly,” he added, “the spiritual formation I had in college seminary has helped me to develop good habits in my spiritual life, habits that I will need both as a seminarian and, God willing, as a priest one day.”
Rusciolelli said his time at St. Joseph College Seminary also helped him grow closer to Jesus, seeking His will above all else, and understanding that if we aren’t doing what He asks of us with complete trust and confidence in Him, we are “a resounding gong.”
‘All our efforts and all our successes must be through and for Him lest everything we do be a waste,” he said. “SJCS has helped me understand this.”
Formators at the college seminary have emphasized cultivating virtue, developing a prayer life, and becoming familiar with Church teachings, philosophy and Latin as building blocks towards their continued discernment of the priesthood and the goal of becoming a faithful priest who will serve the people of the diocese.
Rusciolelli“All the little daily practices in the college seminary schedule are directed at this end of building a strong and healthy foundation of a man,” Rusciolelli said, “capable of supporting a structure which rises high up towards heaven and bringing others with it.”
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter