Fr. Tony Stephens

Fr. Tony was born in 1976 and is a native of Angelus, Kansas. He graduated from a public high school in 1995, and afterwards he attended Christendom College in Front Royal Virginia.  Discerning a call to religious life and the priesthood, he joined the Fathers of Mercy in 2000.  In 2001, Fr. Tony professed the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and then he studied for the priesthood at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.  While at the Josephinum, he received his Master of Divinity degree.  He was ordained a priest in 2005, and he served for two years as the assistant pastor of St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Nicholasville, KY.  In 2007, Fr. Tony was assigned to begin traveling and preaching parish retreats, also known as “parish missions”.  His travels have taken him all over the United States, into Canada, and also to different parts of the Australian Continent.  From 2009-2015, he served as the Vocations Director and Student Master for the community.  During this time, he also helped out part time in the preaching apostolate of the Congregation.  Beginning in August of 2015, he joined the formation faculty at the Mt. St. Mary’s of the West in Cincinnati, OH, where he workedas the Vice Rector and Director of Formation until the Spring of 2021.  After completing a six year term at the seminary, he rejoined the Fathers of Mercy mission band as a traveling mission preacher in the fall of 2021.

The Congregation of the Fathers of Mercy was founded in 1808, originally under the title of “the Missionaries of France.”  The community was founded for the purpose of re-evangelizing the French people after the Catholic Faith had been subjected to years of attacks and persecution during the French Revolution.  It is now an exclusively American community, headquartered in South Union, Kentucky.  The primary apostolate of the Fathers of Mercy is to conduct parish missions and retreats in effort to re-evangelize and revitalize the faith of those who seek God’s Truth and Mercy.