Meet Our Priests
Msgr. John J. Enzler, Pastor
Father John was born in Bethesda and grew up as one of 13 children in a Catholic family. He attended Our Lady of Lourdes in Bethesda, St. John's College High School and Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa with a major in Political Science. He entered the Mount St. Mary's Seminary in 1968 and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Washington on May 12, 1973. His assignments have included deacon at St. Jane de Chantal, parochial vicar of Little Flower in Bethesda, Director of Youth Ministry for 11 years, Pastor at Mount Calvary in Forestville, Pastor Our Lady of Mercy in Potomac. He was made a Monsignor in 1985. Father John was appointed Secretary for Development for the Archdiocese in 2001 and named Pastor of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in June, 2005. Father John serves on many boards and committees, almost exclusively for Catholic causes, including Providence Hospital, Catholic Charities Foundation, Don Bosco Cristo Rey School, SOAR, Shepherd Foundation, Victory Housing and Chairman of Potomac Community Resources, among others.
Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, Assistant on Weekends
Joseph A. Komonchak is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and holds the John and Gertrude Hubbard Chair in Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America. Ordained in 1963, he received his Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, in 1964 and his Doctorate in Philosophy at Union Theological Seminary, New York, in 1976. He taught theology at St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, from 1967 to 1977, when he joined the faculty of the Department of Religion and Religious Education at The Catholic University of America. There, and in the newly structured School of Theology and Religious Studies, he has taught courses on ecclesiology, modern theology, the thought of John Courtney Murray, and the history and theology of Vatican II. He has published many articles on these subjects in journals such as: Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions; Chicago Studies; Concilium; Cristianesimo nella Storia; The Journal of Religion; The Jurist; The Review of Politics; Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique; Theological Studies; The Thomist. He was the chief editor of The New Dictionary of Theology and is the editor of the English-language edition of the five-volume History of Vatican II. A collection of his essays was published as Foundations in Ecclesiology.
