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Bryan Paulsen, SJ

Hometown
Warrenville, Illinois
Province
USA Midwest

“I love the spirit-led Jesuit charism and structure of formation. I love the way God has met me and consoled me at each stage of formation. Within the Society I have found it so easy to be authentically myself. The way formation has changed me has revealed to me who I really am and who God intends me to be.”

Highlights of Jesuit Formation

  1. As a novice during the 30-day pilgrimage, begged his way from New York City to Portland, Oregon, and back to St. Paul, Minnesota, with stops in Cincinnati and St. Louis, sleeping on the streets and in homeless shelters throughout.
  2. Performed acoustic covers of contemporary pop songs for Loyola University Chicago undergraduates as part of the “Folkin’ Jesuits.”
  3. Accompanied young adults on retreat at the Ignatius Press retreat house and vineyard in Guerneville, California.

Post-Ordination

Will serve as assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

Bryan is ordained a deacon by Bishop Michael C. Barber, SJ, at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California.

Biography

Bryan D. Paulsen, SJ, was born and raised in the west suburbs of Chicago by a full complement of biological and stepparents. The youngest sibling, he was preceded by an older brother and stepsister. Growing up in a fundamentalist evangelical Protestant tradition, Bryan was heavily involved in his small Bible church, especially through youth groups, worship bands and small group Bible studies. After a public K-12 education, Bryan attended Trine University to study chemical engineering, where he was again very involved in worship bands and small groups through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Christian Campus House. While in engineering graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Bryan first encountered the Jesuits through literature (e.g., Voltaire, Thomas Mann, Italo Calvino). This led Bryan to get involved in local faith-based community organizing through Saint Thomas More Parish, near his residence in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was in this parish that Bryan entered the Roman Catholic Church in 2008. After the completion of his Ph.D., Bryan entered the Jesuit novitiate, and two years later took perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience at that same parish.

As a Jesuit, Bryan studied philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, where he also ministered to unhoused LGBTQ+ young adults on Chicago’s North Side. Bryan spent his regency as a post-doctoral researcher in the biomedical engineering department at Northwestern University and accompanied Catholic graduate students and young adults through the Sheil Catholic Center. Following regency, Bryan was missioned to Berkeley, California, to study theology at the Jesuit School of Theology and to continue his scientific research endeavors at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. During this time, Bryan ministered at the Newman Center at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as a deacon. He will celebrate his first Mass at the Madonna della Strada Chapel on Loyola University Chicago’s campus. After a summer pastoral assignment, Bryan will be missioned to the University of Notre Dame as an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Academic Degrees

Bachelor’s degree, chemical engineering, Trine University; Master’s degree, social philosophy, Loyola University Chicago; Master of Divinity, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University; Doctor of Philosophy, materials science and engineering, University of Minnesota

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