C. Matthew Hawkins: Brief Bio

I was born and raised in the city of Pittsburgh. I grew up in a working-class African American neighborhood. My father was the pastor of an African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church. Both my father and mother were professors at the University of Pittsburgh and they gave me a broad interfaith and ecumenical foundation. I attended a Catholic elementary school, a Quaker high school, and a Jewish summer camp. I was drawn to become a Catholic and entered full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 1978.

I earned a master’s degree in social work community practice skills from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985, and an additional master’s degree in applied history from Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. For twenty years I worked in the field of community economic development while teaching community practice skills at the University of Pittsburgh and American history at Carlow, which is a Catholic University in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. During this time I was an active member of St. Benedict the Moor Parish in the historic Hill District of Pittsburgh.

Following seven years as a nocturnal adorer in the Ryan Catholic Newman Center while working as a consultant on in-depth parishioner interviews and participatory narrative inquiry for pastoral planning in parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and serving on the parish pastoral council of St. Paul Cathedral, I entered the seminary in 2014 to discern a calling to the priesthood.

I am now in my final year of theological studies in St. Mary’s Seminary and University. St. Mary’s was founded by the Sulpician order and was the first Catholic seminary established in the United States. Located in Baltimore, it is noted for its emphasis on pastoral and spiritual formation.