View source for Calabria, Father Michael

Michaels concerns for the homeless brought him to the door of the Franciscan Friary on West 31st Street in New York City to talk to a friar. He joined the order as an affiliate and eventually decided to profess vows as a brother and later he was ordained a priest by Bishop Emil Wcela at St. Francis of Assisi Church in New York City. He gave up a successful career and home in Manhattan. Father Calabria is a graduate of Bethpage High School where he was a good student and obsessed with Egypt. He later received a master’s in Egyptology, a bachelor of arts in near Eastern studies and a master’s in library science, theology, and divinity. He is fluent in Arabic and currently pursuing a PhD. in Scripture. As a Franciscan Brother he served and cared for 800 men, women, and children with leprosy (today known as Hansen’s Disease) in a government clinic near Cairo. His next assignment will be to teach Scripture at the Theology Department of Bonaventure University in Allegany, New York. (from THE LONG ISLAND CATHOLIC 7/02/03)