Welcome, Fr. Peter!

We are excited and blessed to welcome a new Chaplain to the Kean Catholics family, Fr. Peter Volz!

Fr. Peter was born and raised in Orange County, California. He has a B.A., M.A., and an M.Div. Before entering the seminary in 2012, he was a barista at Starbucks for two years. He comes from a “pretty big family,” the sixth of nine children! Fr. Peter recalls always going to church and being raised in the faith. When he was thirteen, Fr. Peter joined the Neocatechumenal Way, “which is an itinerary of Catholic formation similar to the R.C.I.A. which emphasizes growing in faith in small communities.” Stressing the importance of being in a faith community at a young age, Fr. Peter notes it “was the best thing for me as a teen in southern California, because it helped me to resist a lot (but certainly not all) of the temptations that attack all of us.” Here in the Office of Campus Ministry, we certainly understand that being in a close faith community during important developmental years in our lives is crucial, whether it be as a young teen or in college.

At the age of 21, Fr. Peter was given the opportunity to go help a team of missionaries working in parishes in Utah and New Mexico, and felt the call to become a missionary priest. After six months, he was sent to the Archdiocesan Missionary seminary of Newark. And the rest is history!

Fr. Peter was ordained a priest after ten years. He served as a transitional deacon at Church of the Nativity in Midland Park, and has been at St. John the Apostle Church in Linden after being newly ordained in 2022.

We asked new priest and new Chaplain (!) Fr. Peter some questions for readers to get to know him better:

Why did you want to become a priest?

Fr. Peter: I wanted to become a priest out of gratitude for what the Lord did for me, and to help others to experience His love.

What is your favorite thing about being a priest?

Fr. Peter: Definitely confession, it is amazing to see how to Holy Spirit acts through me to help people understand they are loved as sinners.

What do you like about living or serving in NJ?

Fr. Peter: I like the four seasons, but I intensely dislike the humidity. Other than that New Jersey is a pretty neat place to be a priest because of the variety of people from all over the world that come to live here.

What is your hope for your new role at Kean/working with college students?

Fr. Peter: I not sure what the Lord intends by having me assigned to Kean, but my hope, as always is to bring others to Christ. College is a tough time, I know it was for me, a lot of temptations, ideologies, and confusion are presented to us and it can be difficult to act in a Christian way, or to even want to act like a Christian.

Do you have a favorite saint/devotion?

Fr. Peter: I like a lot of saints, but for many years I have been close to St. Maria Goretti who fought for purity by defending her virginity to the point of death. She has helped me, and still helps me in my own fight for purity of mind and body.

Any fun facts we should know about you?

Fr. Peter: I like to cook, I speak three languages (English, Spanish, and Italian) I love to travel and have been all over the place, and I love to snowboard.

You can meet Fr. Peter this semester when be begins to offer Mass for the Kean community, weekly at 3:15PM on Wednesdays in Kean Hall 127. We also plan to have a “Meet the Chaplain” night this semester, where we can hear not only Fr. Peter give his testimony, but give him the chance to know everyone a bit better over some dinner. Be on the lookout for this!

Welcome to the Kean community, Fr. Peter!