The Michigan Catholic and Steubenville Register

STEUBENVILLE, OHIO — Born in 1963 in Detroit, Bishop-elect Monforton is the eldest of three sons of Marc Louis Monforton and Virginia Rose Ackerman Monforton. His father died in 2003.

He attended Tinkham Elementary School and John Marshall Junior High, Westland, and graduated from Wayne Memorial High School, Wayne.

After high school, he attended Wayne State University and then entered Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy in 1989. While studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he received a bachelor’s in sacred theology in 1992, and then obtained a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

On June 25, 1994, he was ordained to the priesthood at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Detroit, by Archbishop Adam Maida. After his ordination, he served as associate pastor at the National Shrine of the Little Flower, Royal Oak, from 1994-96, while also serving in the religion department at the parish high school for two years.

He served as the personal priest secretary to Cardinal Maida from 1998 to 2005. During that time he was also a faculty member at Sacred Heart Major Seminary and assisted at St. Paul on the Lake, Grosse Pointe Farms, and St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Sterling Heights, on weekends.

On July 1, 2005, then-Fr. Monforton was named pastor of St. Therese of Lisieux Parish, Shelby Township, and the same year was conferred the title of monsignor.

Msgr. Monforton was named as an apostolic visitor by the Congregation for Catholic Education to participate in the recent apostolic visitation of U.S. seminaries and houses of formation for the 2005-06 academic year.

In 2006, he became a member of the board of trustees for Madonna University.

Since 2008, the bishop-designate has been a board member of the American Friends of the Vatican Library.

He was named by Cardinal Maida as the 12th rector of Sacred Heart Major Seminary on Aug. 24, 2006. He concluded his six-year term as Sacred Heart’s rector May 5 of this year, but has continued to serve the seminary as a part-time member of the theology faculty.