May 7, 2017
Rev. Stephen M. Grozio, C.M., a priest who has embraced St. Vincent de Paul’s legacy by ministering to needy immigrant communities, has been elected Provincial of the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians).
Elected to the post in March, Fr. Grozio will start on his six-year term in June. According to his seminary classmate, Rev. Patrick J. Griffin, C.M., Executive Director of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society at St. John’s, the new Provincial has dedicated much of his service to those who are often deemed outsiders in our society.
“Fr. Grozio’s route to the office has been varied,” Fr. Griffin noted, “with a ministry to migrants, as a pastor in an inner-city parish, and as Director of an apostolate to the Hispanic community. He speaks Spanish fluently and loves to be found among the poor.”
Fr. Grozio entered the Congregation of the Mission in 1972. “I was touched by St. Vincent’s love for the poor, and his desire for the spiritual good of those who were abandoned,” he said. Ordained in 1978, Fr. Grozio began ministering to Latino communities in 1981. His first such assignment involved ministering to migrant farm workers in the Diocese of Kalamazoo. He has also worked in provincial administration and served at St. John the Baptist Parish in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, NY, and at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in North Philadelphia, PA.
In 2007, Fr. Grozio was appointed Director of Hispanic Ministry at the Vincentian House in Southampton, NY, where he has offered spiritual direction, taught adult formation and lay leadership courses, and celebrated weddings, baptisms,
and quinceañeras.
“Fr. Grozio is a genuinely good man who brings both intelligence and diligence to the service of the poor in the best spirit of St. Vincent de Paul,” Fr. Griffin said. “Among the gifts he brings to the role of Provincial is an ability to organize and remain focused on what is most important. These will be invaluable traits for his leadership when joined to his knowledge of the people and works of the Province.”