His Excellency, the Most Reverend Andrew H. Cozzens, Auxiliary Bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota joins Dr. Mary Anne Urlakis on Episode 19 of WCAT Radio’s “Vows, Vocations, and Promises: Discerning the Call of Love.” Bishop Cozzens is a native of Denver, and a graduate of Benedictine College in Kansas. While discerning a priestly vocation, he served as a traveling missionary with the Twin-Cities based NET Ministries, subsequently joined the Companions of Christ in St. Paul in 1992. After completing four years of study at the Seminary of St. Paul, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1997. After serving as the Parochial Vicar at the Cathedral of St. Paul, he was sent to the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome where he completed a doctoral dissertation which focused on the manner in which the priest is called to be the living image of Jesus Christ the Bridegroom of the Church. Bishop Cozzens was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Oct 11, 2013, and His Ordination to the Episcopacy took place on Dec 9, 2013- the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In 2019, he was elected to a 3-year term as the Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis- a role which began in November 2020.

His Excellency has worked extensively in priestly formation, including his work on the USCCB Working Group for the Program of Priestly Formation the (PPF6) based on the new Ratio Fundamentalis. Bishop Cozzens serves as the Board President of the Seminary Formation Council, and His Excellency is also the Board President for the Institute for Priestly Formation.

Bishop Cozzens and Bishop Felipe Estevez are the Co-Editors of the text: Priestly Husbands: Priestly Fathers: Seminary Formation for the 21st Century. As such he brings a wealth of insight and experience to this unique book project. The text brings together in one volume a dynamic collection of essays, documents, and tools for those who work in the area of seminary formation. The goal of this comprehensive book is to provide a spiritual and psychological resource that engenders affective maturity and fruitful celibate chastity for a renewal of priestly formation, an aim which echoes the objectives expressed by the Church in the 2016 Ratio Fundamentalis and the 6th edition of the Program for Priestly Formation. The text has been hailed by bishops and formators as an essential guide which provides concrete tools that assist formation by taking into account the spiritual and humans needs of the candidates, while helping them determine whether those same candidates are capable of the self-gift required by priestly celibacy.

In this interview, Bishop Cozzens discusses with Mary Anne Urlakis both his role in the development of the book as well as his own personal contribution- Chapter 10, entitled: “The Essential Role of Mentor-Formation Advisor.” Spiritual Husbands-Spiritual Fathers: Priestly Formation for the 21st Century is published by Enroute Books and Media and can be purchased at https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/spiritualhusbands/, as well as on Amazon.com.