Father David Gentry-Akin's Path to Priesthood

Saint Mary’s “baby priest,” as Father David Gentry-Akin affectionately calls himself, was ordained on June 14, 2014 for the Diocese of Stockton. Though the title may be new, the role is not. The duties and passions of priesthood have been ingrained in Father Gentry-Akin since childhood.

“I’ve had students here for years writing me emails ‘Dear Brother’ or ‘Dear Father.’ I never told them that I was either! They just intuited something about me that made them think I was a Brother or a priest,” laughs the new Father, sitting in Ferroggiaro Quad wearing his clerical collar. It’s clear after only a few minutes with the jovial, generous priest how that confusion may have occurred. He began our meeting asking about me––focusing on my career aspirations and considering who he might know in the business.

The Theology and Religious Studies professor, who has taught at Saint Mary’s for 21 years, started his teaching career in his youth, tutoring English to boys and girls coming to the States from Central and South America. “I wasn’t raised in a Catholic household,” said Gentry-Akin, who was introduced to the Catholic faith by twin boys from LaPaz, Bolivia, to whom he was teaching English. “It was almost accidental. I ended up discovering Catholicism through them.”

This led Gentry-Akin to join a group of religious teaching Brothers at 18 and to later pursue a master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, then a doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Though involved in hospital chaplaincy, social justice and parish work, the Catholic theology specialist has constantly remained true to his teaching roots, explaining, “I always end up coming back to teaching. It’s really my first love.”

It is this love of teaching that makes Father David’s ordination unique. While religious orders ask you to take a vow of poverty and diocesan orders ask you to serve primarily in a parish, Gentry-Akin could not do either. He needed to support his mother and did not wish to give up his teaching position. Finally, after an almost 10-year process, Gentry-Akin found Bishop Stephen Blaire, who allowed the devoted professor to become a priest and serve part time at a parish in Stockton while still maintaining his role at SMC.

Though the new role keeps Gentry-Akin busy, he is having no issue with the transition, taking to priesthood “like a fish to water,” he said. “My case is unusual because I have really become a priest from the inside out,” he explained. “I’ve always been on this faith journey and becoming a priest has been a very gentle evolution.”

Already busy with his duties, Father David can be found on the weekends at his parish assignment, St. Jude’s in Ceres in the Central Valley, where he takes on a more minimal role compared to most priests, but equally effective. He says three Masses, hears confessions, counsels, and participates in religious education and other pastoral ministries. “It’s a very privileged role. And I’m very aware I’m only human; I’m just a guy who’s inhabiting that role, trying to do the best I can. I am just God’s instrument,” Gentry-Akin said.

Father David has done much with his priestly work on campus, conducting a weekly late-night informal Mass for students in Michael E. Ageno Hall, where he is a resident director, and hearing confessions and providing counseling for interested students and staff. Hearing confessions, Father David said, is one of the most privileged aspects of his new role. He says he finds it “very profound and very humbling” to be trusted as a confidant of many students and parish members.

Father Gentry-Akin also teaches a Jan Term pilgrimage to Rome, which includes an audience with the Pope, whose writings are a favorite source of reading for the professor, who teaches courses such as “The Catholic Imagination” and “Breath of Life: Faith and Science in Dialogue.”

“Our teaching in Rome has been an extraordinary collaboration between Dave and me,” says Fr. Michael Russo, who co-teaches the course with Gentry-Akin. “His teaching has been his ministry for a long, long time. And in a way, his ordination to the priesthood is an affirmation of what he has already been doing. I see this firsthand in Rome. He is a prime example of someone so versed in the history and theology of the Church and the Eternal City––and perfectly relates this experience to our undergraduates.”

Excited for this year’s trip, Gentry-Akin does not know how his new priesthood will affect the experience but guesses, “Being a priest will give me a special sense of pride in what we are doing, a deeper sense of connection to everything that the Holy See represents.”

An avid lover of travel, he toys with the idea of designing a travel course to the Holy Land, though he is aware of its possible limitations, since the Holy Land is often such a politically volatile area. He is also considering several other ideas for Jan Term classes, including a course on cosmology and scientists’ changing views of the universe, as well as a course on masculinity, would he hopes would help young men to think more deeply about what it means to be a man in our culture.

“I hope over my 21 years here I have become a better teacher, a better counselor to young people,” said Gentry-Akin of the ways his professorship has informed his priesthood. “I hope that all of my time at SMC––whatever I’ve learned and in whatever ways I’ve grown––is influencing the kind of priest that I have become and will become in the future.”

Story updated August 26, 2024 to include lead image