Priest new to diocese assigned to Ogden

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Fr. Joseph Minuth

OGDEN — When Father Joseph Minuth was a boy, his parish priest told him and his brother that they would make great priests one day. The comment had no immediate effect: Fr. Minuth graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and intended to get married and have a career in business. He even went through a phase where he doubted the existence of God.

Even during that time, however, he attended Mass with friends. He also was influenced by the family stories of his grandfather, a Cristero who fought against the anti-Catholic laws that were imposed in Mexico in the early 20th century. Then, too, he believed Catholics were good and holy people doing good and holy work – his aunt is a nun. In addition, he was attending St. Edwards’ University, a private Catholic institution. It was there that he heard a young woman speak about the work she had done with Mother Teresa of Kolkata. Her presentation encouraged Fr. Minuth to read a couple of books about the future saint, and “I was just enthralled; I was just blown away by the work Mother Teresa did,” he said.

Mother Teresa’s work was beautiful, but the context of the beauty was “the worst parts of this world, the gutters and the slums and all this disease and hunger,” he said. “And it was just so beautiful to me that I said, ‘There’s got to be a god; there has got to be something behind this; this is not just a woman working. There’s something more to it.”

After encountering Mother Teresa’s story, Fr. Minuth spent the last 18 months of his college years active in campus ministry. Later, while he was in the seminary, he learned that, when asked what kind of saint she would be, Mother Teresa she said it would be to be a saint to those who don’t believe in God.

In his last year of college, the idea of a vocation returned, “but I wanted to get married and I wanted to have my job and I wanted to make money ... so I said, ‘maybe later,’” he said.

After college, while working in the dotcom industry in Texas, he became a member of the Knights of Columbus, was active in his church, and thinking of marrying the woman he was dating. However, he realized “if I married this girl then I’d have to say no to the priesthood, and that I could not do. … I could say ‘later,’ but I couldn’t say ‘never.’”

He broke off his relationship with the young woman, but still tried to bargain with God. During his daily Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, he sometimes would tell the Almighty all the good things he would do as a wealthy businessman. Other times he would think “how cool it would be to give up everything and say, ‘OK, Lord, whatever you want, that’s what I’ll do.’”

Afterward, however, he would talk himself out of pursuing a priestly vocation. Still, when he considered giving his life to God, “I’d feel so light-hearted, and for days afterward I’d feel good,” he said.

He also envisioned giving an account of his life at the Last Judgement, “and it wasn’t that I felt God would condemn me if I was a good devout Catholic with a job, but I’d have to say, ‘I didn’t do it your way,’ and that I couldn’t sit with, either,” he said.

In the end, he knew that if he wanted to find peace and have a fulfilling life, he had to become a priest, he said.

His first thought was to become a diocesan priest, but the vocations director didn’t follow up with him because he mistakenly thought Fr. Minuth was married and therefore not eligible to become a priest. He then decided to visit different religious orders, settling on the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) because he liked their life in community and their focus on evangelization and preaching.

Fr. Minuth was ordained a priest on May 14, 2011 at St. Pius V Catholic Church in St. Louis, Mo. by Bishop John R. Gaydos of Jefferson City, Mo. for the Order of Preachers, Province of St. Albert the Great. However, after 15 years in the Dominican community, working primarily in campus ministry, he found himself struggling because he was being reassigned every three years.

“My projects, I’d say, came to fruition, but it took a lot of work.  Restarting them every two to three years was stressful,” he said. “I felt it was difficult after eight years, and impossible to do this for the rest of my life.  I saw that it made more sense for me to join a diocese, where I could focus on the community without having to pack up, move across the country, and have to get to know hundreds of new people all over again.”

As a result, Fr. Minuth asked to come to the Diocese of Salt Lake City; he has visited regularly over the past 10 years because his mother and brother now live here. He arrived in July and has been assigned as parochial vicar of St. Joseph Parish. Technically, he has been granted exclaustration ad experimentum, which means he is on a trial basis in the diocese as he leaves the Dominican order.  

Although recently arrived, Fr. Minuth is already working to set up a young adult group at the parish, and is planning to improve his Spanish, which he learned when he studied in Mexico for a summer. He also speaks German, having studied in Germany.

“I’m committed to being here,” he said, adding that he enjoys working with students at St. Joseph Catholic Schools and Weber State University. “I think we have a lot of evangelizing-type work to do here, and some of it is re-evangelizing our very selves, our Christian, Catholic community.”