{"id":13457,"date":"2022-05-09T11:38:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T15:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/?p=13457"},"modified":"2022-05-09T11:38:37","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T15:38:37","slug":"the-mount-the-personal-journey-of-father-christian-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/the-mount-the-personal-journey-of-father-christian-moore\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mount: The Personal Journey of Father Christian Moore (\u201843-77)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Father Christian Moore said he knew from the age of 4 that he wanted to be a priest. He had an aunt who was a nun, three uncles who were priests, and a cousin who was a bishop.<\/p>\n

\n

It was just in me; I\u2019ve always been drawn to faith<\/strong>\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in my bones.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And not just any type of priest, if you please, but a missionary. \u201cI wanted to go to Africa,\u201d he said. But as he approached the end of 8th grade at St. Bridget School in Louisville in the spring of 1949, he realized there was a significant obstacle to realizing his dream.
\n\u201cI had done poorly in grade school,\u201d he said recently, suppressing a chuckle.
\nThe Maryknoll fathers, one of Catholicism\u2019s great missionary orders, were not impressed by his academic record. They rejected his application to their minor seminary.
\nBut Father Christian had friends in high places. Or, more accurately, a close relative in the\u202fright\u202fplace.
\nHis father, a civil engineer, supervised the construction of a lake at Mount St. Francis, in the bottomland at the foot of the hill on which the seminary buildings sat. In that role, C. Fred Moore worked closely with Fr. Albert Leis at the time rector at the Mount.<\/p>\n

The elder Moore\u2019s company had agreed to do the project at cost, to make it more affordable for the friars.
\n\u201cSo, Fr. Albert owed my father a favor,\u201d said Father Christian, another chuckle bubbling to the surface.
\nC. Fred Moore confided to Fr. Albert his son\u2019s aspirations and wondered if there might be a place for him in that fall\u2019s freshman class at the Mount.
\n\u201cMy dad asked Fr. Albert to give me a chance,\u201d Father Christian said. \u201cHe said if it didn\u2019t work out, at least I would have tried.\u201d
\nBut once he enrolled at the Mount, a remarkable thing happened: Fr. Christian proved to be an eager and able student. And his suddenly stellar performance became the rule, not the exception.
\nHe excelled at the Mount and beyond. \u201cI was a good student at the Mount, and motivated through college, seminary and graduate school,\u201d he said.
\nHis academic credentials today include master\u2019s degrees in history and sociology from the University of Minnesota, and in theology from Assumption Seminary, and a doctorate in ministry from Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.
\nHe never made it to the mission fields, but he\u2019s done just about everything else for the Franciscans. He\u2019s been a teacher, campus minister, chaplain, and \u2013 for the past 35 years \u2013 a parish priest. Since 2002, he\u2019s been pastor at Incarnation Parish in Louisville.
\nHe just turned 82 in January and shows no signs of slowing down.
\n\u201cStudies have shown that people who retire early don\u2019t live as fulfilling and long lives,\u201d Fr. Christian offered in explanation for his longevity.
\nEven though the Mount wasn\u2019t in his original plan, the place proved to be pivotal in his formation as a priest. As a student, he loved the small classes, warmed to Franciscan discipline, and bloomed under the guidance of role models like Fr. Vincent Gottbrath, at the time prefect. \u201cHe was a real fatherly type fellow, correcting us, but always with patience,\u201d Fr. Christian said.<\/p>\n

\n

There\u2019s nothing better than bringing people to be in love with God,<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After ordination, he returned to the Mount as a teacher and later became principal \u2013 the school\u2019s last before it closed in 1975.
\nFather Christian has known the Mount as a young boy, a student, a teacher, and principal, as a leader of adult and youth retreats, and has loved all of it.
\nIt\u2019s fitting and comforting, he says, that his final resting place will at the Mount, too, beneath the circle of stones in the friars\u2019 cemetery.
\n\u201cThe Mount made me, and I am so grateful for what I got there,\u201d he says. \u201cFor me, that is sacred ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Father Christian Moore said he knew from the age of 4 that he wanted to be a priest. He had an aunt who was a nun, three uncles who were priests, and a cousin who was a bishop. It was just in me; I\u2019ve always been drawn to faith\u201d, he said. It\u2019s in my bones....","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-former-student-newsletter"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-18 18:36:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13458,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13457\/revisions\/13458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}