New vice chancellor aims to serve bishop, priests

By Tim Puet
Catholic Times Reporter

Father Michael Hartge says that as vice chancellor of the Diocese of Columbus, he’s ready to provide assistance to Bishop Robert Brennan and the diocese’s priests wherever it’s needed.

Bishop Brennan appointed Father Hartge to the position in June, and he assumed his new role on Tuesday, July 14. He will be part of the diocesan Chancery staff and will be in residence at Columbus St. Peter Church.

Father Hartge, 35, had been pastor of the Perry County Consortium of Parishes in New Lexington, Corning, Crooksville and Junction City for two years. He fills a position that has been vacant since Deacon Thomas Berg Jr., who had been vice chancellor, was appointed diocesan chancellor in 2012.

“When Bishop Brennan told me about the appointment, he said he needed more help administratively and thought it would be good for a priest to fill that role,” Father Hartge said. “I’ll be doing a variety of things related to the day-to-day life of the diocese and know I’ll be working closely with my brother priests, because the bishop has stressed making this office a resource for priests.”

The Church’s Code of Canon Law says the principal function of a diocesan chancellor “is to take care that acts of the curia (the diocese’s principal officers) are gathered, arranged and safeguarded in the archive of the curia. If it seems necessary, the chancellor can be given an assistant whose title is to be vice chancellor.”

Father Hartge said that when he asked Bishop Brennan about specific duties of his new position, “he quoted from the passage in the Gospel of John where Mary tells the wine stewards during the wedding feast at Cana, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ I’ll be like the stewards and do whatever the bishop wants me to do.”

Although he will be living at St. Peter Church and usually celebrates Mass there on Friday mornings, Father Hartge is available to assist pastors throughout the diocese at times when they need another priest for Masses in their parishes. He already has filled that role at Worthington St. Michael Church, the Scioto County Consortium of Parishes and Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral.

Father Hartge was ordained a priest on May 30, 2015, by Bishop Frederick Campbell. He served as parochial vicar for the consortium consisting of Chillicothe St. Peter, Waverly St. Mary, Washington Court House St. Colman of Cloyne and Zaleski St. Sylvester churches for three years until being appointed to the Perry County pastorate.

“I was thrilled that Bishop Campbell assigned me to Perry County,” he said. “The people there embraced me with open arms, and we got to know each other very quickly. It was a very good experience, and that made it that much harder to leave after only two years because my new appointment came sooner than my former parishioners and I expected.

“This is an unusual time in the history of the Church,” Father Hartge said. “Not that long ago, someone who had been a priest for five years still would have to wait a few years before becoming a pastor. With the smaller number of priests, that’s no longer the case, so now I’m doing something I never would have expected to do at this stage of my priesthood a few years ago.

“I’ve enjoyed my friendships with many priests in the diocese, starting at my home parish, Gahanna St. Matthew, when Msgr. (Edward) McFarland, Father (Paul) Noble and Father (Theodore) Sill, the current pastor, were pastors there,” he said. “Msgr. (Stephan) Moloney (now diocesan vicar general) was in residence at St. Matthew’s for many years and also was a big influence, and so was my great-uncle, Father Russ Tikalsky, who was a priest in the Milwaukee Archdiocese for 64 years before he died this past February. They’ve all been great mentors. Knowing them gives me confidence that I’ll be able to serve all of the diocese’s priests as vice chancellor.”

Father Hartge is the son of Frank Hartge, business manager of Columbus St. Patrick Church, and Judeen Hartge, who has been a teacher at Gahanna St. Matthew School for 25 years. He has two brothers, Frank, 37, and Joe, 26, and a sister, Molly, 33, who is a theology teacher at Columbus Bishop Hartley High School. 

He is a graduate of Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School, received a Bachelor of Science degree from Ohio University in 2007, and then was a newscaster and disc jockey at WAIS radio in Nelsonville and a public radio station in North Carolina.

He said he had always thought about being a priest and that he felt promptings from the Holy Spirit grow stronger during his radio career, so he decided to enter the seminary in 2009. He spent the next six years at the Pontifical College Josephinum, receiving Master of Divinity and Master of Arts degrees in theology from the institution just before his ordination.