A Journey of Service

The story below was originally published in The Athenaeum, MTSM’s bi-annual magazine. The Athenaeum is published twice a year for alumni, patrons and friends of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology. To be added to the mailing list, contact: Heidi Walsh at 513.233.6159 or hwalsh@athenaeum.edu.

The School of Theology at MTSM was pleased to welcome Dr. Joey Belleza as the Director of Programming and Promotion in July. Dr. Belleza brings a diverse background shaped by his upbringing, service in the U.S. Army, his education and his work in lay evangelization to Cincinnati, utilizing those experiences and learnings into his work and teaching.

Dr. Belleza’s childhood was spent moving around, with time in Texas, the Philippines and Canada before his family settled in California at the age of seven.

“From a very young age, I was quite convinced that the military life would be something that I would pursue,” Dr. Belleza said. “At the same time, I grew up in a Catholic household, being raised in the faith and attending Catholic schools. By the time I was 14, I knew I wanted to study theology formally. I decided I wanted to go to college, serve in the military and then go back to school to get my master’s and doctorate. It is a blessing it has turned out that way.”

After graduating from the University of San Francisco, a time during which he was part of the school’s Army ROTC program, Dr. Belleza entered the U.S. Army as a Field Artillery Officer, serving for seven years which saw him make stops in Germany, Korea and Afghanistan before he returned to school.

Upon completing his military service, he enrolled at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California and completed master’s degrees in both philosophy and theology before going to work for the Church as Communications Director at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California, one of his early challenges came from the Covid pandemic.

“A lot of the Cathedral staff was furloughed, so I had to take over a lot of duties beyond communications,” Dr. Belleza recalled. “I learned a lot about why pastoral ministry was important, especially in a place which had restrictive regulations in all places, including places of worship.

“I fielded a lot of correspondence from well-meaning Catholics wanting to know when they could go to Mass, go to confession or receive the Eucharist,” Dr. Belleza said. “So I helped put together a plan for clandestine distribution of Holy Communion, utilizing our underground parking garage. We did not publicize it, it spread through word of mouth, but we had people from all over Northern California come. People were crying because it was the first time they received Holy Communion in so long.”

In September 2020, Dr. Belleza went to the University of Cambridge in England to complete his Doctorate in Theology & Religious Studies, for which he spent a lot of time in research and writing about St. Thomas Aquinas and how his teachings fit in the modern Church and modern society.

“For a young and impressionable, but inquisitive mind, there was something about his rigor that was appealing,” Dr. Belleza said. “The riches of the Thomistic tradition unfolded for me and things started making more and more sense. I could watch a soccer game and hear a Latin American or Italian commentator go crazy about a goal and have an insight that there is a Thomistic way to account for this.”

After completing his doctorate, Dr. Belleza spent a year working at The Christian Heritage Centre in Stonyhurst, England before returning to California to work for the Diocese of Sacramento as Associate Director of Lay Formation. He sees his time in Sacramento having a lot of practical implications to Cincinnati.

“Sacramento is a very geographically large diocese with very different demographics,” Dr. Belleza observed. “Like Cincinnati, it has a well-defined urban core with more rural areas further out from that. In these parishes, there are a lot of dedicated laypeople who want to step up into ministerial positions.”

Dr. Belleza is excited to continue this work within the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and with MTSM.

“Our proximity to the Archdiocese Chancery gives us the chance to strengthen the collaboration between us and the Archdiocese,” Dr. Belleza noted. “I am very happy to be working with Dr. (Sam) Johnson, Aimee May (MTSM’s Coordinator for Lay Ecclesial Formation) and our partners in the Chancery to have a very robust and coherent approach to forming laypeople.”