Orlando Catholic Church Leaders

You can usually tell where Fr. Vilaire Philius is after Mass by the sound of it. He is the one working his way down the line, greeting every last person who came to say hello, delighting in their company, and every so often breaking into a laugh loud enough to carry across the room. Parishioners tend to describe him the same way, as a priest who brings the joy of the Lord to everyone he meets.

Warm, joyful, and quick to laugh, Fr. Vilaire has carried that spirit through more than a decade and a half of priesthood, and it is the reason the people who know him tend to describe him not by his title or his assignments, but by the gladness he seems to bring into a room. He says it plainly himself. "I love to serve the people of God with joy," he once said. "Whatever He says, I say 'Yes.'" He is humble about the work, too, quick to ask his parishioners to pray for him, even for something as simple as help remembering all of their names.

He was born and raised in Haiti, and he knew early where he was headed, going straight from high school into seminary at the Salesian house in Port-au-Prince. He came to the United States as a young man and later became a citizen, and though he spent years with the Salesians, he felt drawn toward parish life in Central Florida. He left them in 2004 to study theology for the Diocese of Orlando and was ordained in 2009. He served a handful of parishes around Orlando before arriving at Our Lady of Grace in Palm Bay, where he was installed as pastor on Pentecost Sunday in 2023, in a Mass so full of joy the whole church erupted in applause. He likes to introduce himself with a joke, telling people they have finally met a black Irishman.

What has always drawn Fr. Vilaire is people, and young people most of all. He loves working with the youth and helping them grow in their faith, and he has made it his mission to draw the many cultures of his parish into one family, including the Haitian community he was entrusted to shepherd, whose choir still fills the church with song in their own language. He believes love is bigger than the things that divide people. "Love goes beyond our ethnic group, our language," he has said. "Love is universal." He is the kind of pastor who lights up when someone decides it is never too late to give themselves for love, and who measures a good day by the people he got to serve in it. "I never imagined I would be here," he says, "but the Lord is so good to me."

Father Nicholas O'Brien is the kind of priest who cannot leave a good idea alone. If there is a way to make the faith something people can see, touch, or laugh their way into, he has probably already tried it. The people who fill his pews describe homilies that make even hard teachings feel clear and close to home.

Ordained in 1983, he came to Florida in 1990 and soon became known for an approach to ministry all his own. He taught himself magic, set up a carpentry shop to build his own props, and raised doves and rabbits for his illusions, all so a Pentecost homily might end with a dove rising from a balloon or a cross appearing where a moment before there had been none. He started a clown ministry that grew almost faster than he could keep up with. None of it was ever for show. "If I can't bring the message of Christ to what I'm doing," he once said, "then there's no sense in doing it."

That instinct never left him, it just keeps finding new tools. He has run an online ministry since 1999, back when few priests thought to look there, and the same idea now hangs on the wall of the parish thrift store downtown, a mural of saints that stops strangers in their cars and draws in people who might never walk onto church grounds. The store itself feeds families who need it, because for Fr. Nick tending the soul and tending the body were never really separate things.

For all the invention, what lies underneath has always been simple. He leads St. Matthew in Winter Haven now, a parish that calls itself a family of believers, and he cares for them the same way he writes: the first to poke fun at himself, careful never to leave anyone feeling judged, and always pointing people toward one quiet truth, that they are not just going to church but coming to meet the Lord. He still describes the priesthood the way he did years ago. As a boy, he says, he wanted to be a bus driver, a police officer, and a carpenter, and somehow, as a priest, he got to be all three. It is as good a description as any of a man who has never stopped finding new ways to do the one thing he loves.

Father Joe Shaute is an easy man to know. He goes by Father Joe, and he tells his own story plainly, the hard parts included. He is the firstborn son of an Army officer from Scranton and an artist from Lowell who met at a wedding and stayed married for fifty-seven years. He was a military kid who moved six times before he started first grade, then settled with his family in Miami, where he grew up speaking Spanish. His last name is an Ellis Island name, Shaute, pronounced SHAY-ute. Before the collar, he spent twelve years working in communications, with a broadcast journalism degree behind him. The pull toward the priesthood did not come from any plan of his own. It came from teenagers. Volunteering with a Life Teen group that tripled in a single year, he kept hearing it from the kids themselves: he had a calling, and he should not be afraid of it. He went to Rome to think it over, then to seminary in New Orleans, and was ordained in 2001. He still lights up around young people, and he likes to say that a school is not just a community's future but its present. He has carried more than his share of hardship. He calls his first year as a priest a baptism by fire, and the years since have not been much gentler. He has beaten cancer twice, the most recent a hard round of lymphoma, and buried both of his parents. Through all of it, his sense of the priesthood has stayed simple, the way he once put it to his parish: word and deed, the conduct of Christ and not of the world. It was his health that finally brought him south, to a warmer climate and a lighter load. What Rockledge got is a priest who has already lived several lives and still meets people the way he always has, openly, with his whole story and his whole heart.

Fr. Waldemar Maciag was born and raised in Częstochowa, Poland, the spiritual capital of Poland and home to the Shrine of the Black Madonna at Jasna Gora. He is an artist, musician, songwriter, and missionary priest whose life has been shaped by a faith formed under communism, a vocation he never expected, and a creative spirit he never abandoned. Before the priesthood ever crossed his mind, he was a university art student with long hair and holes in his jeans, following his dream of becoming an artist. A retreat at a Carmelite convent changed everything. Ordained in 1997, his journey took him from Poland to Sweden for six years of mission work, including one year in the Arctic Circle, before arriving in Florida in 2005. He has served the Diocese of Orlando for over two decades and was formally incardinated into the diocese in January 2025. Those who know him describe a priest who paints Stations of the Cross, writes lyrics for rock bands, designs windows inspired by the rural churches of his Polish childhood, and brings an artist's eye and a missionary's heart to everything he does.

Fr. Joseph Tran was born in Dong Nai, Vietnam. He is a pianist, the oldest of three children, and a priest whose life has been shaped by a faith formed early and carried far. Raised in a village he describes as poor in material terms but deeply rich in faith, his family attended Mass almost daily, gathered around stories of the saints, and ate dinner in front of a statue of Saint Joseph. At twenty, he moved to Melbourne, Florida, sponsored by his uncle, a Catholic priest already serving in the United States. His journey took him from engineering studies and work at a nail salon to seminary formation at St. John Vianney College Seminary and St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, before being ordained to the priesthood on May 28, 2022, at St. James Cathedral in Orlando. He now serves as Parochial Administrator of St. Paul Catholic Church in Leesburg, Florida, where he also oversees St. Paul Catholic School. A gifted musician who has been playing piano for the Church since he was twelve years old, he speaks of the Eucharist as the center of his life and names serving the poor as his priority, no matter who they are or what language they speak. Those who have worked alongside him describe a priest who is approachable, kind, and genuinely present, someone whose instinct is to listen before he leads.

Fr. Matthew Hawkins is known as a pastoral leader in the Diocese of Orlando, especially through the way he serves both individuals and the larger faith community. As a priest and pastor, his leadership is seen not only in the duties he carries out, but also in the way he stays close to the people he serves. Whether through the sacraments, preaching, or personal guidance, his work is centered on helping others grow in their relationship with God. What stands out in his leadership is the way he balances structure with personal care. While he helps oversee parish life and takes on diocesan responsibilities, he remains approachable and attentive to the needs of others. He has spoken about continuing to learn from his parishioners, seeing them as part of his own growth as a priest. It is a steady kind of leadership, one that feels relational, grounded, and focused on serving the community well.

Fr. Matthew Hawkins also serves as a Vicar Forane in the Diocese of Orlando, specifically for the Central Deanery North. In this role, he helps support communication among priests and parishes while working closely with diocesan leadership. His responsibilities include helping coordinate pastoral concerns, sharing feedback, and making sure the needs of the different parishes in his deanery are brought forward and given attention. The role is not only administrative, though. It also involves encouragement and support, especially for fellow priests as they carry out their own ministry. In that sense, his service as Vicar Forane reflects both trust and responsibility, showing that his leadership in the diocese reaches beyond one parish and into the wider life of the Church.