Father Tony steps down as leader of Campus Ministry after 12 years

By Annie Renz

Stonehill College will observe a senior leadership change in Campus Ministry at the end of the semester.  

Effective June 1, Fr. Tony Szakaly, C.S.C., will be stepping down as Director of Campus Ministry. Fr. Tim Mouton, C.S.C., will take over the position. 

Fr. Tony has led Stonehill’s Campus Ministry for 12 years. He said the most rewarding part of the job is sharing his faith with students. 

“Certainly [the most rewarding part] is the opportunity to walk in faith with students, particularly. Leading in prayer at Sunday masses, those are great experiences of gathering the community together and being with students at the highest moments of life and the challenges,” said Fr. Tony.  

It was not Campus Ministry that brought Fr. Tony to Stonehill. He was asked to come to Easton, MA, to serve as Superior of the Holy Cross community.  

“After my first year as Superior of Holy Cross, the opportunity to take over campus ministry came in Dec. 2013 and I’ve been here since,” he said. 

“I had never done campus ministry before. It was a cool challenge,” said Fr. Tony. 

Fr. Tony has been involved within the greater Holy Cross Congregation for years beyond his time at Stonehill.  

He earned his bachelor’s, MBA and M. Div. degrees from the University of Notre Dame. Fr. Tony was ordained in 1992 and spent his first 11 years of priesthood in parishes.  

He then became Vice President and Treasurer of the Holy Cross Congregation for nine years before coming to Stonehill.  

President John Denning shared an email in early March notifying the community of this leadership change. Denning shared the many impacts that Fr. Tony made while serving as Director of Campus Ministry.

President Denning said, among many things, that Fr. Tony “established chapels in O’Hara and Villa Theresa, refurbished the old postulant’s chapel in the Holy Cross Center, and instituted weeknight Masses in various residence halls.”  

President Denning also said Fr. Tony’s impact goes beyond the school itself as he impacted the lives of students through faith formation and service programs.  

Although Fr. Tony will be stepping down as Director of Campus Ministry, he will still be on campus serving as Stonehill’s Alumni Chaplain.  

“I’ve been doing this role part-time for 13 years,” he said. “We are still in the process of figuring this role out. It’s about coming up with spiritual programming for alumni and working with the advancement division.”  

What a full circle moment it will be when the role transitions to Fr. Tim, as the two have known each other since Fr. Tim was born. 

“I met [Fr. Tim] when he was one month old because I knew his uncle. He was also a priest. We were in Texas, where he was born, and he asked me to meet his nephew,” said Fr. Tony. 

“I worked with Tim when he was ordained ten years ago,” said Fr. Tony. “He’ll be great.” 

Fr. Tim has been at Stonehill for eight non-consecutive years. He served in Campus Ministry from 2014-2017 and came back to Stonehill in 2020 to take over as Director of First Year Experience and leadership development.  

Fr. Tim said he expects a lot of changes with his role come June 1.  

“My role with the first-year experience and leadership development and transfers will all be somebody else’s job. All of the campus ministry stuff, like the H.O.P.E. program and L.I.G.H.T. program, all of the liturgy stuff on campus, and all of the retreat stuff, I’ll be in charge of,” Fr. Tim said.  

Athletes on campus will be excited to know that Fr. Tim will still serve as Stonehill’s Athletic Chaplain. 

“Some of that will change just because of what my new commitments are. My priorities have shifted, and I may have something else that takes precedence over athletics. But I still love it, and I’ll still make a lot of it work, but that’s kind of where it stands,” he said.  

Fr. Tim came to Stonehill after attending the University of Notre Dame, where he earned his bachelor’s and M.Div. degrees. Fr. Tim said he did not enter the seminary at Notre Dame to become a priest, but to become a better person like his father, who has been in the seminary.  

It was not until his junior year of college that Fr. Tim realized he wanted to continue with his seminary work and wanted to learn how to become a better priest.  

“Stonehill was just coming onto our radar,” said Fr. Tim. “It’s technical; we used to be separate provinces, but we merged into one. Now we have new places where you can go and work at.” 

Fr. Tim said that as a person born and raised in Houston, TX, he had never traveled to New England. He was brought out here for an internship at My Brother’s Keeper.  

“I didn’t really spend much time on campus, but I liked our community here,” he said. “When it came time for me to be assigned, they said, ‘How about Stonehill?’ And when I got here, I loved it. I loved working with college students.”  

One of the things that Fr. Tim said he loves about Stonehill is how he can play a lot of different roles due to the small campus size. One example he said is how he serves as an athletic chaplain for all teams rather than just one. 

“When I went back to Notre Dame, I was just a baseball chaplain because we had chaplains for every team and you had to kind of stay in your lane. Here, there aren’t really lanes to stay in. You can do a lot, like traveling with the teams,” he said. 

Fr. Tim said he’s excited about this next step in his career. 

“You get to do as much as you’re willing to put into it,” he said. “We have such good people here. I’m a big, big fan and my family has become big Stonehill people.”