Father Gerry Waterman knows where to get what he says is the absolute best bahn mi sandwich in the city of Syracuse.

It’s at Ky Duyen Cafe. And it’s no surprise that Waterman, the Catholic chaplain at Syracuse University and a total foodie, recommends local restaurants like no one’s business. But it’s important to note that Waterman’s only been living in Syracuse for about two months.

This is how Waterman is. He lives to find new places, meet new people and spread his happiness to others. When someone comes into his office, he greets them with a hug. Some might say he radiates a “joie de vivre.”

Waterman was hired at SU as the campus’s Catholic chaplain after then-Chaplain Father Linus DeSantis died of a heart attack on Dec. 1, 2015. Waterman moved to Syracuse in late July after serving as associate Catholic chaplain at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, where he’d been since 2005.

The chaplain’s move to Syracuse gave him a chance to ruffle his feathers and explore a new area, something he couldn’t be more excited about. His only skepticism was the cold.

“I was born in Connecticut so yeah, I’m used to it, but for 12 years I have been un-used to it,” he said with a laugh.

As a part of the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church, Waterman took an oath to not stay in one place for too long and to travel where he is told to. One might think he came to Syracuse because he had to for work, but Waterman says otherwise.

For one, Waterman said that wherever there are people, there is happiness, so he would really be happy wherever he was. Waterman said he felt something special in Syracuse. From day one, he and Chancellor Kent Syverud — also a Catholic — have hit it off.

“He didn’t have to convince me to come, he just had to be himself,” Waterman said of Syverud.

Andrew Stranahan, a liturgy coordinator for SU’s Catholic Center’s 10:30 a.m. Sunday mass and a junior history major said both Waterman and DeSantis had a lot of positive energy. But since Waterman is a little younger than DeSantis, Stranahan said he brings new ideas and a new overall vibe to the Catholic Center.

 

“Like, he’s my priest, but then we also bond over Kakao Talk, a Korean messenger app, because he actually really wants to be friends with us,” Stranahan said, handing over his phone as verification. “Feel free to scroll all the way back and see all the emojis we send back and forth. I have him hooked.”

Maggie Byrne, campus minister at the Catholic Center, echoed Stranahan. Byrne said Waterman brings a new wave of energy to the center and added that he is really good at “asking for things and graciously receiving.”

So far Waterman has gotten a maintenance company for the Catholic Center, found funding to cater the center’s weekly Thursday dinners — they had Moe’s last week and it was “popping” — and he already knows the names of the more than 150 students who are part of the Catholic Center.

Knowing all the students’ names is something Waterman takes particular pride in. Shannon Walsh, the student president of the Catholic Center and a senior policy studies and psychology double major said that when a student meets Waterman, he will ask them for their name, where they’re from and then for an interesting fact about them. After that, he has them ingrained in his brain.

Waterman was raised in a way that turned him into the people-person he is today. His family shared a home with three other families that were all a part of his extended family. His grandmother always told him that out of all of them, he would be the priest. He was skeptical.

He tried to be a priest in the Catholic Church when he was young and realized he wasn’t ready. He went on to work at a bank and fell in love with the “woman of his dreams.” But then, with what he described as “being hit on the head with a two-by-four” he realized he was being called back by the church. He told her he had to end things. While she was heartbroken, she told him she loved him enough to let him go and be happy.

Now, years later, he knows he made the right choice.

Waterman’s ability to relate to SU students — demonstrated by his devotion to social media, Amazon, selfies and Syracuse basketball —  while remaining an important figurehead in their lives is why Byrne, Walsh and Stranahan all feel he is changing the Catholic Center for the best.

“I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Father Gerry,” Walsh said. “We can’t have mass without someone here to celebrate it, and he’s not just here for that, he’s here to actually care about us.”

Published on September 26, 2016 at 8:53 pm

Contact: ararcham@syr.edu