Change is coming to the SU Catholic Center this fall, and it’s the good kind. As Father Gerry Waterman prepares to depart from campus ministry after ten years of faithful service at the University, two new Conventual Franciscan friars are stepping in to carry that legacy forward: Father Emanuel “Manny” Vasconcelos, OFM Conv., and Brother Nicholas Romeo, OFM Conv., together with Campus Minister Patrick McLaughlin, will form the next chapter of Catholic life at Hendricks Chapel.

Father Manny Vasconcelos: A Homecoming to Community

Father Manny is moving to Syracuse from Washington, D.C., but his roots trace back to New Bedford, Massachusetts, “once the whaling capital of the world,” he likes to note. He grew up in a tight-knit Portuguese community, the kind his parents found when they emigrated from Portugal in the early 1970s.

“Their faith really was what brought them an anchor and made them deepen their relationship with God, being so far away from family and home,” Father Manny says. “And so they found a home in the church.”

That sense of a faith-as-home would shape his own path. Before entering religious life, Father Manny spent four years as a high school campus minister and religious studies teacher at Cathedral High School in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was there, working alongside two Franciscan friars on the school’s ministry team, that he felt the first pull toward community life.

“I started feeling a draw to living out a call to ministry in community,” he says. “And I knew I would live it out best with the help of a community, rather than on my own.”

He’s now been a Franciscan friar for 15 years and a priest for eight, having earned a bachelor’s degree in theology from Providence College in Rhode Island, a master’s in education and a Master of Divinity from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His first assignment took him to St. Anne’s parish in Columbus, Georgia, where he also served as chaplain to a small but devoted group of Catholic students at Columbus State University, about 15 students in a heavily Baptist community.

That small group left a big mark. In the years since, Father Manny has officiated a surprising number of their weddings.

“They know a priest, so they call me,” he says with a laugh.

Fluent in English and Portuguese, Father Manny is already looking forward to Syracuse University’s choral music scene. He caught a glimpse of the Hendricks Chapel Choir’s talented student singers during the SU Catholic chapel’s dedication and Father Gerry’s farewell celebration, and he’s hoping to find his way into a pew, or maybe even a choir loft, himself.

Brother Nick Romeo: Faith Rooted Early

If Father Manny found his calling gradually, Brother Nick found his very early.

Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, in a family anchored by Sunday Mass, Brother Nick was, by his own admission, “a big church dork.” He decorated his childhood bedroom for the liturgical seasons, sourcing his colored decor from the linen closet without his mother’s full knowledge and built tiny Advent candles out of Legos. In eighth grade, he played the role of Jesus in a Stations of the Cross performed in mime.

“It was cool, it was the ’90s,” he says, laughing.

Like most people, he went through what he calls his “fake atheist phase,” until a junior year morality teacher, himself a friar, changed his perspective. Brother Nick joined the Franciscans right out of high school, at 17 years old, requiring his parents to sign a permission form.

Twenty-two years and 19 professed vows later, he hasn’t looked back.

“My dad thought his son might follow in his footsteps,” Brother Nick says, referencing his father’s 30-plus years as a Baltimore County police officer. “I do not strike fear into the hearts of any criminals, so that wasn’t meant to be.”

Brother Nick holds a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. He also has a master’s degree in education from Boston College, earned during summers while he taught high school ministry: nine years in Buffalo, eight of them as a campus minister, followed by two years in Baltimore. Most recently, he spent time as a vocation director alongside Father Manny, the two working together for the past four years to help young men discern a call to Franciscan life.