January 6, 2023
Remembering The Quiet Genius of
HIs Holiness Benedict XVI
Fr. Paul was born in Houston, Texas, in 1988 and grew up on the island of Bermuda from the age of six until he graduated high school. A cradle Catholic, Fr. Paul nevertheless underwent a significant deepening of his faith in his time studying physics at the University of Dallas.
He transferred into Holy Trinity Seminary as a senior in college to study philosophy for two years as a seminarian for the Diocese of Dallas. In 2011 he was sent for theological studies to the North American College in Rome, where he attended the Pontifical Gregorian University during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI.
He was ordained a priest in May of 2016 at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Dallas, after which he was sent back to Rome for further studies in Sacred Scripture and Biblical Languages at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.
He returned to Dallas in 2019 as parochial vicar at St. Ann in Coppell, and in 2021 he was assigned to be the vocation director for the Diocese of Dallas. As of July 2022 he was given the additional assignment of associate chaplain at the University of Dallas. He now lives in residence at St. Monica Catholic Church in Dallas.
Francis Maier
Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Maier’s work focuses on the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, with special attention to lay formation and action.
Mr. Maier served as senior adviser and special assistant to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., for 23 years in Denver and Philadelphia. He previously served as editor in chief of the National Catholic Register, and as a story analyst and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and New York University’s School of the Arts, he is a former fellow of the American Film Institute’s Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies.
He is a cofounding board member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture, and a board member of the Napa Institute. His bylined work has appeared in First Things, National Review, The American Spectator, Crisis, This World, America, Commonweal, the New York Times Sunday magazine, Christian Science Monitor, and other national and foreign outlets.
