Help Us Celebrate Fr. Fred Taggart, O.S.A.!
Profile of Fr. Fred…
In Chapter Five of the Rule of St. Augustine, our spiritual Father writes, “The more you devote yourselves to the community rather than to your private interests, the more you have advanced. Thus, let love, which remains forever, prevail in all things that minister to the fleeting necessities of life.”
Looking back over Fr. Fred Taggart’s 65 years of service to the Order, one finds an example of selfless dedication to community that is truly worth celebrating. Few friars of our Province have travelled as widely and as frequently between assignments and communities. We are confident that many of our readers in Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Racine, Tulsa, and elsewhere will be delighted to learn of this opportunity to celebrate a man whose service they have witnessed firsthand.
The vocation of Fr. Fred was first cultivated by the Augustinian friars at St. Matthew Parish in Detroit, where he attended elementary school and received his confirmation. He continued on for two years at our Province’s former Austin Catholic High School before transferring to St. Augustine Seminary in Holland, MI, where he graduated in 1956.
He professed simple vows to the Order a year later, at the age of 19, and solemn, lifelong vows in 1960. He began collegiate studies in 1957 at Immaculate Conception Seminary in northwest Missouri. After one year there, the Augustinian formation program relocated to the newly opened Tolentine College in Olympia Fields, IL. There he completed his undergraduate studies, earning his B.A. in Philosophy in 1961. He continued with graduate theological studies at Tolentine and Augustinian Academy in St. Louis and was ordained a priest of the Augustinian Order in 1965.
Following his ordination, Fr. Fred took his first assignment as a Math teacher at Chicago’s Mendel Catholic High School. After four years there, he was transferred to teach at his own alma mater, Austin Catholic in Detroit.
He moved in 1976 to St. Augustine Seminary, where he continued teaching and became a member of the Province’s Formation Team. When the Augustinian minor seminary program relocated in 1977 to St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, Fr. Fred moved along with it.
The next year he was assigned to be Prior of the community at St. John Stone Friary in Chicago, teaching part-time at Mendel Catholic. After earning his Certificate in Formative Studies and M. A. in Formative Spirituality in 1983, Fr. Fred was assigned to St. Nicholas of Tolentine Monastery, in Olympia Fields, to direct the Province Renewal Team and serve as Adult Vocations Director.
He returned to his home state in 1987 when he was assigned to the position of Pastor at St. Peter Parish in Douglas, MI. He became Pastor of St. Clare of Montefalco Parish, Grosse Pointe Park, MI, in 1989. In 1995 he was appointed Pastor of St. Matthew Church, Flint, Michigan. While remaining Pastor of St. Matthew, Fr. Fred took on the appointment of canonical Pastor of St. Michael Parish in Flint, where he remained until his semi-retirement in 2015.
He continued to serve his Province following retirement as he once again joined the Formation team as part of the Novitiate community, then located at St. Rita Parish in Racine, WI. Following the transfer of the Novitiate to Villanova, PA, Fr. Fred moved to Bl. Stephen Bellesini Friary, Crown Point, IN.