Rev. Msgr. Christopher Nalty
Episode 238
21 AUG 2023
He was a varsity wrestler at Jesuit High School in New Orleans during which time they won three state championships. (He was second in the state one of those years.) He went on to play intramural sports at Notre Dame, played flag football in seminary at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, and was a referee of the annual flag football game when he worked there as a Vatican official. He is an avid hunter and fisherman, and a PADI Master SCUBA diver, all while serving as the pastor of Good Shepherd Parish in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Along the way he had received his law degree from Georgetown University, went on to practice law for six years, eventually leaving to begin studies for the diocesan priesthood at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
Notable guest quotes:
“My parish is maybe about ten or fifteen minutes from my mother’s house, where she still lives… I’m the oldest of five kids.”
“My dad was actually in the first class of the permanent diaconate here in New Orleans, and so we were surrounded by the church.”
“My dad had, kind of, two deals with us. He told us he would pay for us to go to college anywhere we wanted under two conditions; it had to be out of state, because he wanted us to see more of the world, and he said it had to be Catholic. So, all five of us graduated from Catholic universities.”
“Notre Dame really was a perfect fit for me… going to Mass was like normal… it was just what you did… And so, my faith life only increased there.”
“The first time that I’d ever had a priest ask me whether I’d thought about being a priest was in my second year of law school… I was in the habit of making an annual retreat and it was during my retreat when I would always kind of think about it.”
“We sat down to pray our Liturgy of the Hours and it was kind of at that moment that I’m like, ‘I think this is what I’m supposed to be doing.’ It just felt right to, like, be with men who were manly, normal men and pray.”
“It was just this very eclectic group, but the one thing that we all had in common was that each of us had this kind of crazy idea that God wanted us to be a priest.”
“When I was a Vatican official I would see the guys, they asked me to be a ref, which was kind of fun – at least I wasn’t getting hit.”
“When I went for my apostolate, she said, ‘I’ve spoken to Mother Teresa and Mother Teresa said you must come to Calcutta this summer’ … I went back and I told my friend… and while we were walking down the hill from the seminary… he said, ‘Ya’ know, the last place on the planet that I want to go for the summer is Calcutta… But if that’s what God wants us to do, I think we gotta go’.”
“The priest handed me the ciborium and said, ‘You distribute communion there,’ and I walked to my spot, and I looked up and the very first person in line is Mother Teresa and, so, I gave her what she wanted more than anything in the world – Jesus.”
“I met popes, and I met John Paul, but, I mean, I spent a lot of time with (Mother Teresa).”
“All the outdoor sports – hunting and fishing and trapping – in that, there’s always an element of God’s providing for you.”
Related link:
Rev. Msgr. Nalty’s bio on Notre Dame Seminary Graduate School of Theology website
