Three priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who are members of the priestly fraternity Companions of Christ are being assigned for three years to the Diocese of Crookston to meet pastoral needs there, Archbishop Bernard Hebda said in a Jan. 23 letter to priests.

Thirty-three active priests in Crookston serve 66 parishes in an area nearly three times the size of the archdiocese, Archbishop Hebda said. Nearly half the active priests will reach retirement age in the next 10 years. The Crookston diocese has a number of seminarians, but the next ordination is four years away, the archbishop said.

The archdiocese has been blessed with excellent priestly vocations, the archbishop said. “This year alone, we are anticipating the ordination of 13 new priests. We also have a considerable number of brothers who generously serve well past the age of retirement,” he wrote.

Members of the Companions heading north for July 1 assignments:

• Father David Blume, director of the archdiocesan Office of Vocations, to be pastor of St. Philip in Bemidji and St. Charles in Pennington and superintendent of St. Philip Catholic School.
• Father Thomas Niehaus, pastor of Most Holy Redeemer in Montgomery, St. Patrick in Shieldsville and St. Canice in Kilkenny, will be parochial vicar of St. Philip and St. Charles and chaplain for the Newman Ministry at Bemidji State University.
• Father Josh Salonek, parochial vicar of St. John Neumann in Eagan, will be parochial vicar of St. Philip and St. Charles.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, a founding member of the Companions in 1992 and a former auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese, wrote to him last fall seeking assistance, the archbishop said. Knowing the archdiocese’s need for priests, he told Bishop Cozzens that while such a move would be improbable, he would pray about the request. In addition, the archbishop said in the letter, he consulted with the archdiocese’s Comprehensive Assignment Board (CAB), which expressed an initial willingness to consider the proposal, and he asked Father Peter Williams, pastor of St. Ambrose in Woodbury and the moderator of the Companions, to test the idea with his leadership team and among the Companions.

“After much discussion and prayer, and after a number of Companions volunteered for a missionary experience of this sort,” he and Bishop Cozzens agreed on the three-year assignments, the archbishop wrote.

In addition to recognizing the need in Crookston and the strong priestly vocations in the archdiocese, the archbishop said, he considered the generosity of other bishops to the archdiocese when it has sought priests, such as those qualified to help fill faculty positions in the seminaries.

“Finally, it seems particularly fitting to support the missionary aspirations of the Companions,” the archbishop wrote. “Approximately half of the Archdiocesan members of the Companions have moved here from other parts of the country precisely to be a part of this clerical association of the faithful. In many ways, these men have already been missionaries to our local Church. Our members have been augmented in excess of the three priests that we will now be sending to Crookston.”

The archbishop wrote that he hopes and prays the temporary assignments will bear fruit for the faithful of Crookston and in the longer run, the archdiocese and the priests involved.

“We all benefit from the powerful witness of brothers selflessly committed to following the Lord Jesus, the one who had no place to lay his head,” the archbishop wrote.