Stephen Joseph Wolf

Stephen Joseph Wolf is retired in Nashville, where he grew up the second of eight sons of Charlie and Jeanette and has worked as a student, janitor, launderer, desk clerk, landscaper, certified public accountant and parish priest.

 

Schooled at St. Ann School, Father Ryan High School, Middle Tennessee State University MTSU, with a Masters of Business Administration from Belmont University, and as a Certified Public Accountant with Carter, Young, Wolf & Dahlhauser, P.C., after 14 tax seasons, then 5 years at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago where he completed a Masters of Divinity, and ordained in 1997 by Most Rev. Edward U. Kmiec, he has served as Master of Ceremonies, Director of Vocation Formation, on the Presbyteral Council, Dean of the Northwest Deanery, and on the Nashville Boards of Catholic Charities, Catholic Community Investment and Loan, Inc., and NCCJ. Parish assignments over 22 years were as Associate Pastor at Cathedral of the Incarnation and at St. Henry Church, Administrator at St. Andrew Church in Sparta, and Pastor at St. Stephen Church in Old Hickory for ten years and at Immaculate Conception Church in Clarksville for four years.

 

Other ministry experiences included a dozen medical missions to Haiti, state chaplain for the Tennessee Knights of Columbus, the Liturgical Commission of the Diocese of Nashville, a 30 day directed retreat, the Spirituality & Theology of Diocesan Priesthood program of the Institute for Priestly Formation, a sabbatical at the Institute of Continuing Theological Education of North American College in Rome, Congregations Offering a Living Wage COLW, Just Faith at St. Henry, an Instructor for the Nashville Deacon Formation Program, Nashville Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani, the Clergy Rapid Mobilization Team (CRMT) of the Clarksville Police Department, and President of the Clarksville Area Ministers Association (CAMA).

 

His first book was with Eric Dahlhauser, CPA: Money and Freedom: the New American Game. He has written books for faith-sharing groups, including Forty Penances for Spiritual Exercise; The Passion in the Great Story of Jesus; God's Money: where faith meets life in the world; Being Spouses; Anger the Jesus Way; God's Ones: so-what ponderings for the Baptized; Twelve-Step Spirituality for Christians; The Resurrection in the Great Story of Jesus; and Planning My Own Funeral?. His prayerbooks include Rainbow Prayer; Rainbow Psalms in 30 Days; Dawn & Dusk Rainbow Prayer; Dawn & Dusk Rainbow for Ordinary Time; A Jesus Breviary; Pocket Retreat; Gone Before Us: praying for the dead; and Hinge Hours for Christmas. Other works are Fr. Steve's Three-Finger Chord Ukulele Hymns; Three-Finger Chord Ukulele Old-Timey Songs; and the essay Gay Respect in the Good News.

 

He currently serves as Treasurer and on the Board of PFLAG Nashville, sings baritone with the LGBTQ chorus Nashville in Harmony, is a Musician Volunteer with Music for Seniors, participates in the LGBTQ+Catholic group Always God's Children, is involved with Tennessee Equality Project and Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and enjoys being with the Nashville Ukulele Society and the Nashville Old Time String Band Association.

 

Steve retired from parish ministry in 2019 and is referred to in church paperwork as a dispensed cleric. He is married to his beloved Bill, and continues to discover the graces of silence and solitude and sometimes painting icons and writing for faith-sharing groups and spiritual direction and playing the ukulele no longer only on Monk Mondays.

 

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