Early Life and Ministry
Paul Bradley was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, to John and Cecilia (née Pater) Bradley. One of nine children, he has one brother and eight sisters; two sisters, Roberta (d. 2006) and Mariella, entered the religious life. He attended St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana, and earned a Master's in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Vincent Leonard on May 1, 1971.
Bradley then served as a parochial vicar at St. Sebastian Church in North Hills, at St. Paul Church in Butler, and at St. Kieran Church in Lawrenceville. He also served as youth director for the Northwest Deanery (1973-1975) and family life director for the Butler Deanery (1977-1982). From 1983 to 1988, he was director of the Office for Family Life in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. He was diocesan Secretary for Human Services from 1988 to 1994, during which time he also served as co-pastor with Daniel DiNardo (later a cardinal) of Madonna del Castello Church in Swissvale.
In 1994, Bradley became pastor of St. Sebastian Church, which had been his first pastoral assignment. In addition to his role as pastor, he served as dean of the Northwest Deanery from 1998 to 2001. He was named rector of St. Paul Cathedral and pastor of the cathedral parish in January 2001. On November 7, 2003, he was made general secretary and vicar general of Pittsburgh diocese.
Read more about this topic: Paul J. Bradley
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or ministry:
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,—a sort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His meter was bitter, and ironic and spectacular and inviting: so was life. There wasn’t much other life during those times than to what his pen paid the tribute of poetic tragic glamour and offered the reconciliation of the familiarities of tragedy.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)
“the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)