Jonathan Hoole

My name is Jonathan Hoole and I was born and raised in Utica, NY. My mom was a convert to the faith and she was the one who brought me up going to Church and Sunday school almost every week. However, the faith wasn’t something I took too seriously until I began middle school. While going to a program called Edge every Sunday our teacher, Mark Renieri, really started to make an impression on me. He was really genuine and it was plain to see the love which he had both for our Lord and youth ministry. It was also the story of Saint Sebastian’s martyrdom that really began my now expansive love for the saints. 

I continued through high school and Mark would end up becoming my sponsor and Saint Sebastian my Confirmation Saint. It was my senior year when I got accepted into MVCC’s Adolescent Education program in hopes of becoming a history teacher when the Lord began his first of many tugs on my heart. During a summer retreat at Notre Dame University called Vision I began to feel the call. I went to speak with priests and seminarians from Holy Cross, a religious order on campus, for mostly the pizza that came with it. It was leaving that lunch that I had more questions than answers. 

When I came home to my parish I remember speaking with then Deacon Dennis Walker and Father Joe Salerno about what brothers, deacons, and priests were and what they did. I then began going to Fishermen’s Club with Fathers Hage, Brooks, and Buttner. It was the summer before I received my Associates Degree from MVCC that I applied to seminary and was accepted by the diocese to study philosophy at the Cathedral Seminary House of Formation. 

After two years in the Diocese of Brooklyn I finished my Bachelor’s in philosophy and continued my seminary formation at Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in the Diocese of Baltimore where I am currently studying theology. Since my time in seminary I have been formed into a better Catholic and better man. I have also started my journey as a military chaplain with the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA who I will serve during my priesthood in addition to the Diocese of Syracuse. I have been so grateful for all the different priests, deacons, brothers, sisters, seminarians, and lay people who have helped form me and guide me thus far and I pray the Lord will bring to completion the good work already begun!