The Catholic religion has been a part of the Rev. Daniel Greenleaf’s life since he was a child. His faith in God, though, has only become stronger with age.

He discovered the intellectual life of Catholicism — that is, the philosophical and theological tradition — at around 23. In a post-modern world that idolizes reason and science as the only way to know truth, he said, it gave him a new understanding and appreciation for what it means to have faith in God.

“I think that in my early young adulthood, after high school, I became a serious seeker and started looking in many different directions,” said Greenleaf, pastor of the Prince of Peace Parish and the rector of the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Lewiston. “I always looked deeply into life by questioning everything, and was never satisfied with the shallow answers given by our culture.”

Life has a way of purifying faith, he said.

“As you come up against new experiences that faith had not prepared you for, you have the option of going deeper or reject faith at the level you are at,” he said. “I have come to see that my Catholic faith has the tools to understand, interpret and persevere through a difficult situation coming out a different person on the other side.

“My goal is to explore what my faith and the Catholic tradition have to say about what I am experiencing, good or bad.”

Over the years, Greenleaf has grown in his appreciation of Jesus Christ and what it means to pick up his cross and follow him.

“I am not a dualist that believes there is a war between good and evil and that they are equally matched, meaning that at times, good seems to be winning and at other times, evil seems to be gaining the upper hand,” Greenleaf said.

“God and the good have already won, God has already won by the cross of Jesus Christ,” he continued. “It is not about two equal forces any more than darkness is equal to light, but the way to dispel evil is to bring in good. Now time is playing out, and each human being gets to choose sides, good or evil. The time I need to lean heavily on my faith is usually in the face of evil, suffering and violence.

“In the midst of these things, it is amazing to me that goodness is near ready to heal,” he said.

Greenleaf believes the first experience of faith for him was in the sixth grade when he was at the
foot of his grandmother’s bed as she was dying.

“It was then that I questioned God,” he said. “’Why is this happening to her? She did not ask for this. She did not ask to have Alzheimer’s. She did not even ask to be born? I was not asked to be born. No one consulted me and asked if I wanted to be born. Why is there something rather than nothing?’”

That started his search.

“Then there is the death of my other grandmother at the age of 19 and then my mother and father,” he said. “These experiences caused me to turn inward and seek understanding from God.”

There was also his decision to enter the priesthood and live in the celibate state.

“That was an intense time of leaning and exploring faith,” he said. “I also recognize that faith is important to me in times of dealing with situations I’ve experienced in the priesthood. The humanity of the church with the sexual abuse crisis helped to purify my understanding of my commitment to God.”

In trying times, he said, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on faith as well as the Lewiston mass shooting, Greenleaf relies on faith — not as a static thing but as a time to be
transformed, to experience conversion, and to understand what faith really means and how it evolves.

“It is also a time to mature in faith and be stripped of old aspects of faith in order to make way of new aspects of it,” he said.

Since Greenleaf is not shielded from pain, confusion, suffering and evil, he likes to think he is in a place that allows him to help others bear “these universal experiences of being human.”

“My favorite image comes from the Fifth Station of the Stations of the Cross. It is when Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry his cross,” he said.

“I believe that each one has his or her own cross that God has given and my job is to help lighten the burden in some way. I often cannot fix things or change them, but I can help walk through the storm lifting the load a bit. In this way we are both transformed,” he said.

Greenleaf enjoys spreading the word.

“(It) is an awesome experience, mostly because I get a chance to see firsthand and up close how God is working in people’s lives,” he said. “Because I am able to be present during the most significant times in people’s lives, I get a chance to bond with them in ways I could never do as an accountant, which is my what I went to undergraduate school to become.”

Moreover, he said, he gets the opportunity to talk about serious issues that touch the core of people’s souls.

“It is a sacred place to be, and that I find awesome, and these experiences enrich my own faith as well,” he said.

“I am not only able to be in situations that are pretty powerful and heavy, I get to engage with good and amazing people and our conversations tend to be about ‘heavy, deep and real’ issues,’ he said. “I love to help them explore how God and His holy word speak to them at these times.”