‘Someone we trust’

Concelebrating Bishop Donald DeGrood’s ordination Mass were more than 120 priests from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Sioux Falls. Among them were some priests who knew the bishop as a spiritual director from their years at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul.

Father Jordan Samson is among them. Pastor of Christ the King in Sioux Falls, for one year he lived down the hall from Bishop DeGrood at the seminary, located at the University of St. Thomas, before then-Father DeGrood was assigned to St. Peter in Forest Lake.

“When he got named (bishop), I was like, ‘Oh, I know that guy,” Father Samson said with a laugh. Prior to this, “I don’t think I’ve had a personal connection to someone named a bishop.”

Father Anthony Urban, 35, was ordained for the Diocese of Sioux Falls alongside Father Samson, also 35, in 2011. The pastor of two parishes in southeastern South Dakota, he also attended SJV. He too had a deep respect for the now-bishop’s ministry there.

“He’s someone we trust,” he said. “I remember he would preach Monday mornings usually, and he was just a very trustworthy person at the seminary. He was there to be a shepherd as a priest ‘on the floor’ and as a spiritual director, and now it’s on a much bigger scale, being a spiritual father for our whole diocese.”

A spiritual director from 2000 to 2004 at the seminary, then-Father DeGrood’s reputation was that of “a man of prayer, a steady presence, someone you can count on, reliable,” Father Samson said.

He “waged a war on the snooze button, too,” he added, as the priest encouraged the college-aged men to grow in discipline.

And he was good at racquetball, they said.

“What you see is what you get,” Father Urban said of Bishop DeGrood. “There’s nothing flashy,” just sincerity.

Bishop DeGrood was Father Samson’s formator, and as a seminarian, Father Samson also found solace in their shared farm backgrounds. “It was a really comforting presence for me, I remember,” he said.

Father Urban noted he sees similarities between Bishop DeGrood and his predecessor, Bishop Paul Swain, now officially retired.

They’re “men of prayer, men of discernment,” he said.

Even though Father Samson and Father Urban know their new bishop from seminary, they’re still heeding his advice to all of his priests that they “wait and see what you get” and not make assumptions.

“In a certain sense, you don’t know the decisions he’ll have to make and how difficult it might be,” Father Samson said. “But as a man, I’m glad he’s the one we’re able to point to as our bishop.”