Archbishop Chaput was born in 1944, in Concordia, Kansas. He attended school and seminary locally and later joined the St. Augustine Province of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in 1965.
After studying at St. Fidelis College Seminary in Herman, Pennsylvania and later at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C., he was ordained to the priesthood in 1970.
In 1977, Archbishop Chaput became pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Thornton, Colorado, and vicar provincial for the Capuchin Province of Mid-America.
He was then ordained Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota in 1988. In 1997, Pope John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of Denver.
As member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput is the second Native American to be ordained bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop.
He will be installed on Sept. 8 at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.
“I’ve spent the last 23 years of my life as a bishop in the West,” Archbishop Chaput said on Tuesday. “The priests and people of Colorado and South Dakota have formed me with their faith, their generosity, their humor and their love.”
“Leaving a place is easy,” he added.”But leaving the people who have shaped me with their friendship, opened their homes to me, and welcomed me into the happiness and sorrows of their lives – that’s very, very hard.”
“All I can say to them is thank you. My life as a priest has been filled with goodness because they made it so.”
Marianne is a journalist with a background in writing and Catholic theology. When not elaborating on the cinematic arts, she enjoys spending time with people, reading thick books and traveling anywhere and everywhere.