Fr. Kevin Creagh, CM, began July 1 as Sacred Heart Major Seminary’s new rector and president; will be installed Sept. 8
DETROIT — Since arriving in Detroit in February, Fr. Kevin Creagh, CM, has been inspired and blessed by the welcome he’s received at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
The Queens, New York-born Vincentian priest hadn’t been to the Motor City before — although he’d briefly ministered in western Michigan decades ago — but in the past six months, he’s felt right at home.
“I learned immediately that this is a seminary of great love,” said Fr. Creagh, who on July 1 succeeded Fr. Stephen Burr as the 15th rector and president of Sacred Heart Major Seminary. “This whole community has welcomed and embraced me.”
Since being named to lead Detroit’s seminary — which forms and educates seminarians for the Archdiocese of Detroit and approximately a dozen other dioceses and religious orders, as well as lay students — Fr. Creagh has encountered a deep sense of warmth and faith among Sacred Heart’s students, faculty and community members.
“I’m really happy to be here. I feel very grateful and joyful,” Fr. Creagh told Detroit Catholic. “Archbishop (Edward J.) Weisenburger and the clergy have been so open. I’m learning lots about this incredible Detroit culture, and I’m really blessed to be a part of it.”
On Sept. 8, Archbishop Weisenburger will officially install Fr. Creagh as rector during a 12:05 p.m. Mass in the seminary’s chapel.
Blue-collar roots
Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family, Fr. Creagh identifies with Detroit’s working-class roots.
“My parents, who still live in Queens, are very faithful Catholics and blue-collar, hardworking people,” Fr. Creagh said. “I’m one of eight children, and they raised us to be good Catholics, hardworking people and good citizens of our nation. That was important to them.”
Out of high school, Fr. Creagh joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving four years as a reservist before heading to college, where he first encountered the possibility of a religious vocation.
As an undergraduate at St. John’s University in Queens, Fr. Creagh remembers talking with the seminarians in his philosophy classes about religious life, and the thought began to percolate, but he initially pushed it aside.
“At the time, I had an old car and a new girlfriend, which meant I had no money,” Fr. Creagh quipped. “My friend suggested I attend the job fair on campus, where UPS was offering part-time jobs. They worked you hard, but they paid well.”
He remembers heading toward the UPS booth when he was stopped by a Vincentian priest who handed him a brochure.
“I threw it in my backpack and went to look at UPS,” Fr. Creagh said. “But I started to think more and more about the Vincentians.”
As the Lord’s voice became louder, Fr. Creagh found himself drawn especially to the Vincentian life of prayer and service to the poor, and in 1991, he joined the Congregation for the Missions. As a seminarian, Fr. Creagh served in a number of Vincentian ministries, including a summer ministering to migrant workers in the fields of western Michigan, near Paw Paw.
Upon his ordination in 1996, Fr. Creagh thought he might be assigned to a parish, but his superiors had other ideas.
“(Parish life) is what you train for, and that’s what I was hoping for, but my provincial sent me to go to Niagara University in Niagara Falls, N.Y.,” Fr. Creagh said. “So I did that, and it was a great two years. I really loved what I did.”
At Niagara, Fr. Creagh quickly discovered a passion for higher education, working with students and being part of campus life.
“I loved being with the young people, teaching, doing chaplaincy, working in an outreach center, and just being part of the life of the community,” Fr. Creagh said. “It was a really exciting time.”
Over the course of the next three decades, Fr. Creagh served in many different roles within the congregation’s apostolates, including as a missionary in Taiwan, as vocations director of the New York-based province, and in several faculty, administrative and leadership positions at Niagara University and St. John’s University — both sponsored by the Vincentians.
A lifelong learner, Fr. Creagh’s passion for education includes his own. Besides a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from St. John’s University, he also holds two master’s degrees from the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, N.Y., and a doctoral degree in higher education management and policy from the University of Pennsylvania.
Forming the next generation of priests
While the Vincentians — named after St. Vincent de Paul — are known for their charitable works, the congregation has a charism for priestly formation, having operated several seminaries in the United States and around the world.
“Many people, especially priests and religious, know us by our seminary work,” Fr. Creagh said. “I think formation is very, very critically important for the Church. It’s important in the life of a young man thinking about priesthood; he needs to have that accompaniment and mentorship.”
Fr. Creagh, who served as president and rector of Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, N.Y., from 2019 to 2021, said vocational discernment is first and foremost about listening to God’s voice.
“You have to have a sense of Jesus Christ and his particular calling upon you,” Fr. Creagh said. “There are lots of ways to live out our discipleship through our baptismal calling, and discernment is about finding the unique ways in which our Lord is calling each person.”
For men who are called to priesthood, a critical part is learning to be a man “not for ourselves, but a man for the Church and for others,” Fr. Creagh said.
“There must be a zeal for souls. There must be a zeal to walk with our brothers and sisters to build up the kingdom of God through the sacramental life, and through a deep relationship with Jesus Christ,” he said.
Fr. Creagh said the Church’s four dimensions of a priestly formation — human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral — are meant to build not just strong faith leaders, but well-rounded and mission-centered men of God.
“This means we have to be people who are holy and wise, articulate and competent in the things of our Lord and his Church, and we have to hear the cry of the poor and respond to that as people of this time,” Fr. Creagh said.
As the Church faces many challenges — from restructuring to responding in charity and compassion to the sexual abuse crisis — Fr. Creagh said a lot is being asked of priests.
“Here we are in 2026 — how do we serve and lead our people?” Fr. Creagh said. “We can no longer simply look at managing our parishes or ministries. We need priests who lead our parishes and work with our people, and respond with a mission-centered heart.”
Building on a strong foundation
Fr. Creagh said he’s blessed to be taking over a seminary with a strong foundation and a deep devotion to Christ.
“This is a community of deep prayer and relationship with Jesus Christ,” Fr. Creagh said. “This seminary is absolutely one with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and we take our prayer life and spirituality seriously in all that we do.”
The programs, ministries and formation opportunities at Sacred Heart — both for seminarians and for lay ministry students — greatly bless both the Archdiocese of Detroit and the seminary’s other sponsoring dioceses and religious communities, he said.
“The archdiocese has given this apostolate incredible care, and has really built up a solid program of formation,” Fr. Creagh said. “My focus is to build on the really good work that’s been done here.”
Summer formation programs for seminarians, including immersion learning programs in Central and South America and the annual Desert Formation Experience in Europe or the Holy Land, are unique examples, he said.
“A group of seminarians just returned from Peru after learning another language and another culture,” Fr. Creagh said. “They came back with so much joy and zeal and enrichment, and that really touches my heart.”
Likewise, the seminary’s Institute for Lay Ministry and its many degree and diploma programs for lay students provide a strong base to support the Church’s ongoing need for pastoral ministers, he added.
“We have a very robust program that’s been built out for a long time, providing a pathway for people to learn more about their faith and equip them,” Fr. Creagh said. “It’s an incredible blessing for the archdiocese, and also for the dioceses and religious orders to see that there’s laity here who are seeking to grow in their faith.”
Praying for vocations
In the upper Midwest, Fr. Creagh knows his deep Queens accent gives him away — “I’m still learning the ‘language,’” he quips — but one language that’s universal is a deep love for the Church.
In an era where young people have plenty of vocational options, it’s countercultural to enter the seminary, Fr. Creagh said. As a mentor and spiritual father, Fr. Creagh said the most rewarding part of seminary ministry is seeing a man grow in faith by discovering the path God has in store.
“It’s not easy in today’s world to say, ‘Yes, I’m going to step into this environment and live this way,’” Fr. Creagh said. “It takes a great deal of strength and courage just to step forward, to open oneself to this structural way of living, which is very different from the normal way of living. To see the joy these men have in learning, to hear the stories of how they’re encountering Christ in others, it’s very rewarding.”
As he begins his ministry, Fr. Creagh said he can use all the prayers he can get — not just for himself, but that the Lord continues to call and shape vocations for the critical task ahead.
“Please pray for vocations,” Fr. Creagh said. “Ask the Lord to help you find a way to foster vocations in your family, in your parish, in your community, within your friends, to find a way for each and every one of us to build that out.
“Please pray for our seminarians and our lay students, and for our professors and formators who bring excellence, passion and zeal to their vocations,” he added. “And please pray for me in my role, that I might labor deeply in this good work that I feel very honored, privileged and blessed to begin.”
