Pastors
Together As One is lead with grace by our two pastors, Fr. Timothy Gapinski and Fr. LeRoy Scheierl, and our parochial vicar, Fr. Oswaldo Roche. Learn more about their years of experience, personal interests, and background. All of our priests are available to you, regardless of your parish – in times of joy, sadness, and everything in between.
Fr. Timothy Gapinski:
Father Timothy spent seven years studying and preparing for the priesthood in St. Paul, first at St John Vianney Seminary for three years and then at St Paul Seminary for four. Before joining the seminary, Father Gapinski was an infantryman in the U.S. Army for about five and a half years. For most of his tour he was stationed in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He completed one 16-month deployment to Iraq.
In 2014, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of St Cloud, served as associate pastor at St. Anthonys in St Cloud before serving as pastor of St Michael Catholic Church in St Cloud and St Joseph Catholic Church in Waite Park.
Father Timothy also has celebrated the Traditional Latin Mass at St John Cantius in St Cloud on the first Sunday of each month for several years, until in 2020, the Latin Mass congregation was brought to St. Joseph, Waite Park to be a part of the Together as One ACC community.
Fr. Leroy Scheierl:
Fr. LeRoy Scheierl was born to William and Clara (Arnold) Scheierl and raised on a large family farm near Paynesville, MN. He grew up with 5 other brothers and 2 sisters and attended St. Louis Catholic Church in Paynesville. He has a brother, Deacon Richard Scheierl, who is currently assigned at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Augustine in St. Cloud.
He enjoys the outdoors hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, biking, walking, golfing, playing guitar, painting, and working on his parent’s old farm.
Fr. LeRoy graduated from Paynesville H.S. in 1978 and later received a Bachelor of Arts deg. (1983) with a double major in Biology (ecology emp.) and Earth Sciences (geology track) at St. Cloud State University. After working a short while for the U.S.G.S. (Dept. of Interior) and various other jobs, he began his seminary studies at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN. He earned his Masters of Divinity degree at St. John’s in 1991 and was ordained in June of that year for the Diocese of St. Cloud.
Fr. LeRoy has had many assignments within the diocese, including St. Anthony Church in St. Cloud, and churches in Belgrade, Brooten, Parkers Prairie, Brandon, & Millerville., and has now been serving as pastor at St. Peter & St. Paul in St. Cloud.
Fr. Oswaldo Roche:
Fr. Oswaldo Roche is part of the Diocesan Partnership between his Diocese of Maracay in Venezuela and the Diocese of Saint Cloud, in Minnesota. His mission here began in October 2012, serving the Hispanic communities. He is currently the Parochial Vicar of the ACC “Together as One” in the parishes, St. Michael, St. Joseph in Waite Park, St. Peter and Saint Paul, in Saint Cloud and you can often find him in the office at Centro Hispano attached to the rectory at St Joseph’s Church in Waite Park.
In his own words, “Jesus Christ, missionary of the Father, came to announce the Good News of salvation to all peoples. In this month of the missions, all humanity must receive the message of love, brotherhood, charity, forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus left us on the Cross.”
At this time the prayer of the Holy Rosary, with a missionary sense, helps us to meet other cultures, opening our hearts to others who are different from us, with other languages and customs. I can bear witness to what I have seen and heard. I have seen people with great faith, surrendered to divine providence; sharing the faith, going to mass, asking for the sacraments. I have also heard the cry of hearts, who suffer to see that their families are separated, that there are many who want to help their families who live in other countries and have many needs.
Being a missionary has taught me to live with people very different from me, in race, food, language, customs. My first challenge was the cold, in my hometown, the highest temperature is 115 ° F and the lowest is 65° F. When I started to feel that the highest here was -10 ° F, I said that I would not live through it…The last challenge was to understand not only the different language, in this case, English, but also the idiomatic nuances of Spanish, since when I spoke, not even Hispanics understood me. It is not the same to say “torta” in my country, which means “Cake”, than to say, “Torta” in Mexico, which means “Sandwich.”
The mission is just beginning, there is still a long way to go for the whole world to know and love Jesus, let’s take the gospel everywhere. I can’t stop talking about what I’ve seen and heard, that Jesus is in everyone’s heart.” You can read more about Fr Oswaldo here: https://www.stcloudmissionoffice.com/global-connections