My name is Jay Scott Newman, and I am a priest of the Diocese of Charleston, where I serve as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, South Carolina. This parish was established in 1852 as the first Catholic church in Upstate South Carolina and originally covered all of the twelve counties which now constitute the Piedmont Deanery of our diocese.

Today St. Mary’s embraces over 7,500 souls and conducts a parish school of 300 students staffed by the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Cecilia from Nashville, Tennessee.

Before coming to St. Mary’s in 2001, I served previously as Catholic Chaplain to The Citadel and as pastor of three other parishes in South Carolina: St. Mark’s, Newberry; St. Boniface, Joanna; and Divine Redeemer, Hanahan. I also served as Dean of Men and Assistant Professor of Canon Law at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.

These few pages are my personal website, and I seek to offer here merely a quick glance at the work of a parish priest (especially the work of a Catholic priest in the American South) through the experience of one man. This necessarily means that my vision and experience are personal and partial, and others will doubtless see the things described herein from a different point of view. I hope, however, that the topics touched on here will be of some use to Christians in many places and circumstances.

How to preach the Gospel with credibility in our time? How to lead the baptized in prayer and towards holiness at a moment when reverence and devotion are everywhere rare and too often ridiculed? How to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and the unique Savior of all mankind when the sovereign individual is exalted in our culture as the source of his own salvation? These are the kinds of vexing questions faced today by every pastor, and as I seek to answer them along with the other priests, deacons, religious, and lay faithful of St. Mary’s Church, I will try to describe the path of discovery to anyone patient enough to visit these pages. Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!