George Nursey

Father George Nursey came to the priesthood the long way around. He entered seminary on his fiftieth birthday, after more than twenty years of quietly wondering whether the call he first felt in his late twenties was real.

He is warm, welcoming, and friendly, with a smile that seems to stay put no matter what the day brings. Those who have known him for years describe him not just by his doctorate or his years teaching in the seminary, but by that smile, a quick humor, and a way of turning a single question into a ninety-minute conversation, so much so that one old friend took to calling him a walking Catholic encyclopedia. He is one of eleven children, raised by a devoted Catholic mother and a father who was not Catholic but backed her fully in bringing the children up in the faith. Ask him about the work and he does not hesitate. "It's the best job in the world," he says. "Every day when I wake up, I look forward to going to work."

He did not always feel that certain. Fr. George left the Church as a young teenager and stayed away for more than fifteen years before a reversion in his late twenties pulled him back, and almost as soon as he returned, he felt drawn toward the priesthood. It took him a long time to trust it. Two moments cut through the doubt. Once, a man he barely knew walked up to him and said, "You are a priest of the living God," with no prompting at all. Later, when he finally sat down with a priest for serious guidance, he was asked a single question: what is it that you must do, not what you think you ought to do or what others want, but what is in your heart. The answer came back clear. In his own words, God "let me do all kind of stuff and said, 'Yeah, yeah, I'll see you when you're ready.'" He was ordained in 2013 at fifty-four, and before arriving at St. Stephen in 2023, he spent years forming other men for the priesthood as a professor and dean at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary.

Away from the altar, Fr. George is easy to picture. He spent years as a jeweler before he ever put on a collar, and something of that trade stayed with him, an eye for craftsmanship and a love of beautiful things that shows whenever he talks about churches full of gold and gemstones and the art that turns a building into a little taste of heaven. He is a reader and a lifelong student, as at home quoting Dostoevsky or a favorite theologian as he is telling a story from his own life. He wakes early, he will happily rough it on a mountain trip with a group of young people, and he pours that same energy into St. Stephen, leading book studies, Adoration, and youth camps. For all the theology, it runs back to something simple. He just likes being around people.