Fr. Joe Horn succeeds Fr. Tim Birney as director of priestly vocations for archdiocese

DETROIT — Stepping into his new role as director of priestly vocations for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Fr. Joe Horn is hoping to “bring something new” to the position.



Fr. Horn, who’s spent the last 14 years as a pastor of Holy Family Parish in Memphis and St. Augustine Parish in Richmond, is taking on the new role as the man picked by the archbishop to guide men who are thinking about becoming a priest, leading him to reflect on the reasons he became a priest in the first place.

“In my experience, I did training with the Franciscans, thinking I was going to join the order,” Fr. Horn said in an interview with The Michigan Catholic. “I didn’t embrace vocations until my late 20s. My vocations director was excited about being a priest, which made me encouraged and helped me with the transition to being an archdiocesan seminarian from a candidate to be a Franciscan friar.”

Fr. Horn was surprised when Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron informed him of his new role, but after speaking to his predecessor, Fr. Tim Birney, he realized that his experience as a pastor gives him the perspective to help men who are discerning such a life.

“The key for a good vocations director is to look into a person’s heart, to see in their eyes if there is something that calls out to the priesthood, to look into vocations,” Fr. Horn said. “To ask, ‘Does he exhibit the possibility of the priesthood?’”

Fr. Birney, who spent nine years as vocations director and is now off to become pastor of St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Allen Park, said he learned a few “tricks of the trade” during his tenure that he’s passed off to Fr. Horn.



“I learned there are many who are more attentive to your call than you expect,” Fr. Birney said. “There are many who are taking it seriously, but I learned we have a lot of work left to encourage all Catholics, men and women, that we are all God’s children called to a holy life, and for some, that’s a religious life.”

Fr. Birney said he loved being with men who were excited about the priesthood and helping them through the process of asking what God was calling them to do.

“There’s something takes makes a priest,” Fr. Birney said. “All priests are vocations directors. The key element needed is to be happy in the vocation. A happy priest is a key beginning as a vocations director. If a young man sees a priest who’s happy, that’s what will attract him. That’s where it starts. He has to love prayer and love the Church.”

After settling into his new office at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Fr. Horn said his first major initiative is to encourage an archdiocesan-wide prayer for vocations, calling upon each of the parishes to deepen their intercessions for men who are being called by God to the altar.

“Jesus said, ‘Bring the laborers into the field, for the harvest is plenty,’” Fr. Horn said. “We need to have parishes pray more aggressively. If this synod does what it does, churches will be full, and we’ll need men to step up to shepherd the people, to be the laborers to reap the harvest, as Jesus said. It can be intimidating, for a young man to consider the priesthood, but with the right encouragement from the parish family, more will ask themselves if God is calling them.”