Walsh University has named Father Guy Albert Trudel, O.P., a Catholic priest and a Dominican Friar of the Province of St. Joseph, the next University Chaplain. In this role Fr. Albert Trudel will serve the Walsh community by encouraging and promoting Catholic social teaching, personal development, leadership and will help to cultivate a vibrant and welcoming sacramental and liturgical life on campus. He has six post-secondary degrees including two from the University of Oxford and is also a published scholar in addition to his extensive pastoral experience.
Most recently, Fr. Albert Trudel served as the Director of the Thomistic Institute’s Study Abroad program in Rome, a program designed for undergraduate students to experience the life and works of St. Thomas Aquinas. He plans to continue that path at Walsh University by partnering with Campus Ministry and Global and Service-Learning to build faith-based experiential and study beyond programming for Walsh University students. Fr. Albert Trudel will assume the post in August 2023.
“We are excited to welcome Father Albert Trudel into the Walsh family where he will serve a vital role in building community, providing spiritual guidance and leading religious services on campus,” said President Tim Collins. “As a Catholic university, we place tremendous value on our mission of serving others, having a global perspective, and educating the whole student, both inside and outside the classroom, and our new University Chaplain has modeled these virtues as a pastor, an administrator and as an academic.”
Over the past 23 years, he has been engaged in post-secondary education in teaching and administration. In addition to his faculty experience teaching English Literature, Latin, and Medieval Studies, he served for four years as the Registrar at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., a year as Director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College, and he served the Province’s formation communities as Assistant Novice Master and as Assistant Student Master. Among his pastoral assignments, he was an Associate Pastor at St. Pius V Parish in Providence, RI, and at St. Gertrude’s Parish in Cincinnati, OH, and Interim Chaplain at Aquinas College in Nashville, TN.
Fr. Albert Trudel earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. He attended the University of Toronto, where he received a Master of Arts in English Literature and joined the Congregation of Priests of St. Basil. He studied at St. Michael’s College Faculty of Theology and received his Master of Divinity degree in 1993. He made his final profession in 1994 and was ordained to the diaconate of Pentecost Sunday of that same year. On August 11, 1994, Bishop Ricardo Ramirez ordained him to the priesthood. After a year of pastoral ministry, he did his doctoral studies in English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. In 2002, he completed a post-doctoral License in Medieval Studies and was chosen as a Junior Fellow of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, where he worked until he discerned his vocation to the Order of Preachers.
Fr. Albert Trudel, originally from Alberta, Canada, is the youngest of three siblings. He enjoys hiking, skiing, skating, listening to classical music, singing and calligraphy. Fr. Albert Trudel replaces Father Thomas Cebula who was reassigned to serve as the administrator of St. Louis Parish in Louisville and Sacred Heart Parish in Harrisburg in November 2022 by the Most Reverend David J. Bonnar, Bishop of Youngstown, and in July 2023 will begin as administrator pro tem of Ss. Philip and James Parish in Canal Fulton.
