Rev. Shawn D. Gould, PSS, Director
Fr. Shawn Gould, PSS, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and a member of the Priests of the Society of St. Sulpice. Raised as a Presbyterian in Grand Haven, Michigan, Fr. Gould entered the Catholic Church while practicing law in Milwaukee. After moving to a large firm in Chicago, Fr. Gould discerned a call to the diocesan priesthood and entered Mundelein Seminary in 2005.
After ordination in 2010, Fr. Gould first served as Associate Pastor and Temporary Administrator of St. Alphonsus Parish in Chicago, particularly working with its large young adult population. He then served as Pastor of St. Bede Parish, Ingleside, strengthening the parish school’s finances, and shepherding the parish through a capital campaign and the Archdiocese’s “Renew My Church” re-organization of parishes.
Released to the Society of St. Sulpice as a candidate in 2018, Fr. Gould served on the faculty of St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, where he taught courses in the systematics and pre-theology departments, provided spiritual direction, and was a formator. After becoming a member of the Society in 2021, he was assigned to doctoral studies at the Angelicum and is presently completing a dissertation under the direction of Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., comparing a dimension of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Christology to that of Fr. Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of the Sulpicians.
- BA (1998), University of Notre Dame
- JD (2001), University of California at Berkeley School of Law MDiv, STB (2010), STL (2014), University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, IL
- STD (cand.), Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Rome
Rev. James R. Yeakel, OSFS, Coordinator
Fr. James Yeakel, OSFS, PhD, is a priest, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, and a licensed clinical social worker. After professing final vows in 1977, he was ordained a priest in 1979. He completed his formal education at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, earning a Ph.D. in clinical social work.
Fr. Yeakel has ministered in a variety of pastoral settings. He was the Director of Pastoral Studies at the De Sales School of Theology and taught as an adjunct professor at the Washington Theological Union and at Catholic University of America. As a licensed clinical social worker, he ministered on the staff of Catholic Charities in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and in Washington, D.C.
He later served as an inpatient and outpatient therapist at St. Luke Institute. He was Director of Pastoral Care at St. Mary’s Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, and later, at St. Vincent’s Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Harrison, New York.
He served as a certified supervisor, member, and past chair of The National Association of Catholic Chaplains Certification Commission. He has served as the Director of Formation for the Wilmington/ Philadelphia Province of the Oblates, as an Associate Pastor in Vienna, Virginia, and Philadelphia, and most recently, as Pastor of Immaculate Conception/St. Jude parish in Elkton, Maryland.
- BA (1975), De Sales University
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MA (1978), De Sales School of Theology, Washington, D.C.
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MSW (1980), Catholic University of America
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PhD (1997), Virginia Commonwealth University