Native Place: Boston and the Los Angeles area
Entered Novitiate: September 6, 1966
First Promises: September 8, 1967
Final Promises: May 17, 1970
Priestly Ordination: May 5, 1974
Lives Today: Old St. Mary's Cathedral, San Francisco.
Paulist Fr. Joseph Scott was born in Boston and grew up in the Los Angeles area.
He entered the Paulist novitiate in September, 1966, at age 20.
He made his First Promise to our missionary society in 1967 and his Final Promise in 1970.
He was ordained a priest on May 5, 1973.
Fr. Joe served in campus ministry for much of his first decades as priest.
He was associate pastor at St. Mark's University Parish at the University of California at Santa Barbara (1973 to 1978); associate director of the University Catholic Center in Austin, TX (1978 to 1981); and director of the St. Thomas More Newman Center in Columbus, OH (1984 to 1992).
He would later returned to St Mark's in Santa Barbara to serve as pastor from 2002 to 2006.
From 1981 to 1984, he served as assistant novice master at the Paulist novitiate in Oak Ridge, NJ.
Fr. Joe also served as pastor of Old St. Mary's Church in Chicago from February, 1993, to August, 1994, and as an associate pastor at St. Philip Neri Church in Portland, OR, from 1994 to 1998.
He was an associate editor at Paulist Press from 1998 to 2002.
From 2006 to 2016, he was associate pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Los Angeles.
In 2016, he moved to Old St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, serving as associate pastor until 2021 and then entering senior ministry.
ON PINTEREST: Photos from Fr. Joe's ministry
In the fall of 2023, Fr. Joe reflected on his vocation story and on his five decades of ministry.
On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of his priestly ordination, Fr. Joe looked back in gratitude at what he learned from those with whom he has ministered.
In March, 2023, Fr. Joe was interviewed for our "Five Questions with a Paulist" series:
A young Joe Scott
Fr. Joe in 1973, his ordination year
Fr. Joe in 1979
Fr. Joe in the 1990s