Fr. Chris Saliga, OP, RN

Fr. Chris came to St. Tom’s in July 2020 from Denver, Co. where he served as parochial vicar for St. Dominic Church and expeditionary chaplain in support of COR Expeditions. Father Chris grew up in Whiting, Indiana, and was ordained a Dominican priest in 2005. His initial assignment was as a health care chaplain and ethicist with The Dominican Friars Health Care Ministry of New York at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and Hospital for Special Surgery. While in New York, he also served part-time in the Catholic Campus Ministry at Columbia University.

 He has since served as an Associate Chaplain at the Saint John Paul II Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he also served as interim director of The Integritas Institute for Ethics; university chaplain and adjunct professor in bioethics at Walsh University; associate chaplain of Aquinas House at Dartmouth College with outreach to Medical Students. He has also served in Kisumu, Kenya in various capacities.

Father Chris is an alumnus of The Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Department of Nursing and The Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. Prior to joining the Dominican Order, Father Chris served as a United States Army combat medic and paratrooper, and later as a United States Navy Nurse Corps officer within Naval and Marine Corps contexts. Upon completion of his active military service, Father Chris returned to The Franciscan University of Steubenville where he served as a clinical nursing instructor until he entered the Dominican Order in 1998.