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Chaplain Profiles

The Chaplains are essential to the College community—without them, the College could not thrive or achieve its end of drawing students into a deeper life in Christ.

Currently there are three resident Chaplains. The Chaplains offer daily Mass and Confession, week-day exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, monthly First Friday observances which include all-night vigils before the Blessed Sacrament, student retreats, and other seasonal and occasional liturgical observances.

Fr. Donald J. Planty, Jr. is the Head Chaplain, assigned to the College by Arlington Diocese’s Bishop Paul Loverde in the summer of 2010. Fr. Planty was born in 1966 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to parents originally from New York, where his grandmothers still live, one in Upstate New York and the other in New York City. His parents, two brothers, sister-in-law and two nephews currently reside in Loudoun County, Virginia. Since his father was in the U.S. Foreign Service, Fr. Planty grew up living in Panama, Chile, Mexico, Italy, and Spain, attending American overseas schools - and living in "home base" Northern Virginia, where he attended public schools. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1988 with a B.A. in Government and French, having spent his Junior Year of college at the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France, and being elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Fr. Planty attended St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, receiving an M.Div. in 1992, the year he was ordained a deacon, and an M.A. in Theology in 1993. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, in 1993, and subsequently served as Parochial Vicar at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Arlington, Virginia, from 1993-1995, and as Parochial Vicar and Director of Religious Education at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington, Virginia, from 1995-1996. From 1996-2000 Fr. Planty studied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome, Italy, to prepare for the diplomatic service of the Holy See; at the same time, he studied for and received a J.C.D. (Doctor of Canon Law) degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, writing his dissertation on The Law of the Church and the Building of Churches: Canon 1216 and Sacred Architecture. He worked as the Secretary (Deputy Head of Mission) of the Apostolic Nunciature in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 2000-2002, a post which also covered Eritrea, Djibouti, and the African Union. In 2002 Fr. Planty left the diplomatic service of the Holy See to return to pastoral work in his diocese, and was assigned as Parochial Vicar and Director of Religious Education at Holy Family Parish in Dale City, Virginia, from 2003-2005, where he later became Administrator, then Pastor, from 2005-2010. He also served as Chaplain for the local council of the Knights of Columbus, and as a Chaplain for the Prince William County Police Department. Fr. Planty is fluent in Spanish, French, and Italian, and enjoys sacred art, an eclectic variety of music, hiking, frisbee, cooking, classic cinema, and travel.

Fr. William Fitzgerald, O.Praem was born at Ryde, in Sydney, Australia in June 1954, and is the youngest of three boys. Much of his elementary and secondary schooling was at the Cathedral Choir School in Sydney staffed by the Irish Christian Brothers. At the Cathedral School he learned the Gregorian and Polyphonic repertoire of the Cathedral Choir, the oldest musical institution in Australia.  He also took lessons in piano and organ playing and served as Deputy Cathedral Organist for some months after graduating from High School and before entering Religious Life.  In 1972 he entered the Irish Canonry of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (Norbertines), founded by St, Norbert of Xanten in 1120 in France. His novitiate and seminary studies were in Australia. He professed Solemn Vows in 1978, and in 1979 was awarded the Bachelor of Theology Degree and he became the first Australian to be ordained a priest in the Norbertine Order. Over the next 8 years, Father William taught in the Order’s High School in Perth Western Australia and served in the Priory there as Novice Master and as Pastor in two of the Order’s Parishes. In 1987 Father was appointed to Holy Trinity Abbey at Ballyjamesduff in Co. Cavan, Eire, where he served as Rector of the Abbey Church, Cantor, and Formation Director. After completing the Licentiate in Theology at Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the Angelicum) in 1991, he returned to Australia for a further 6 years serving in Parish Work, High School Chaplaincy, and Seminary Teaching. At the invitation of the Nashville Dominican Sisters and with his Norbertine home base thereafter at Saint Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, CA, Fr. William came to the United States in January 1997. In Nashville, Father was appointed Chaplain at the Dominican Campus and he taught Theology at Aquinas College.  Invited to the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, Father served there as Director of Liturgy and Instructor in Liturgy and Homiletics for 5 years. In 2003, Bishop Roger Foys, the new Bishop of Covington, KY invited Fr. William to come to the Diocese as Director of Liturgy for the Diocese and the Cathedral Basilica. During 5 years in Covington Diocese, he also served as Chaplain to the Sisters of St. Joseph the Worker, Chaplain and Religion Teacher at Covington Catholic High School and as a Spiritual Director for Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati. In 2007 negotiations commenced between Christendom College and the Right Reverend Abbot Eugene Hayes O.Praem, of St. Michael’s Abbey, to provide a Norbertine priest as an associate chaplain for the academic year at Christendom College. In August 2008 Fr. William arrived as the first Norbertine priest from St. Michael’s Abbey to provide this service to the College.

Fr. Seamus O'Kielty was born in County Mayo, Ireland, and is the eighth child of ten. He underwent seminary training in England, Belgium, Germany, and Scotland, and was ordained a Priest in 1954. Father spent the next eleven years as a bush missionary in Tanganyika/Burundi. In 1965, he came to America, where he was lent to the Paterson Diocese to teach high school. In 1966, he served in the Missions in Bolivia, where he became temporary chaplain with the Bolivian Army during the Che Guevara emergency. While there, he set up a catechetical program to better evangelize the Aymara Indians by training more than a hundred catechists, despite opposition from the government. Fr. O'Kielty later attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ, where he received his M.A. in education, and became certified by the state as an accredited teacher of German, French, and Spanish. Father is still fluent in Spanish and French, rusty in Italian, German, Kirundi, Irish and Swahili; reads Latin and Greek, but has almost forgotten all Aymara Bolivian, Japanese, Flemish and Kihaya. He received his M.A. in Linguistics at New York University, and became a Ph.D. candidate. In 1974, he returned to Burundi after hearing there was a critical priest shortage after the massacres, and became a Parish Pastor replacing the Hutu priests who were killed. In 1979, Father was inducted into the Navy as a Chaplain. He completed Arctic Survival and Skiing Training in the Arctic Circle in Norway. He later qualified as expert marksman with pistol and M16. He did Jungle Fighting Training and was awarded Sea Service Deployment medals, and the Navy Achievement Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, and the Meritorious Service Medal. He later enrolled in the Ph.D. Philosophy Program at Fordham University and retired in 1995. Since then, Father was adjunct professor at Farleigh Dickinson University's School of Education. He later returned to the Paterson Diocese, and due to the acute shortage of priests in the areas, Father has been assisting the local parishes, until 2002, when he came to Christendom.