James Schnitzler

James Stasiński Schnitzler was born to Elżbieta Stasińska and Paul Schnitzler in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is the younger of two children, with the elder Matthew Schnitzler being five years his senior. James attended Clear Water Academy through elementary and junior high school and Bishop Carroll High School, both situated in Calgary. He enthusiastically participated in sports (junior high and high school basketball) and music (guitar in high school jazz band and violin in high school string ensemble). During the summers throughout his high school and early seminary years, aside from reading, writing, composing/recording his own music, and engaging in multifarious recreation/travel with his family, James worked several jobs: waiter/dishwasher at a seniors’ residence, paint department consultant at a hardware store, and on-site worker with a foundation repair company. He first considered a call to the priesthood at the age of five at the prompting and inspiration of devoted Polish Salvatorian priests who served at his home parish (St. Joseph’s, Calgary) and continued to discern this call until he eventually got into contact with the vocations director of the Diocese of Calgary immediately upon completing high school in 2017. The following year he entered St. Joseph Seminary in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where he completed a ten-month propaedeutic (pre-study/spiritual) year before being sent to St. Peter’s Seminary in London, Ontario, Canada for philosophical studies to be completed over the course of the next three years. Thence, after graduating from the University of Western Ontario with his BA in Philosophy in April 2021, James transferred to the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in Texas, beginning the MDiv program at UST School of Theology in September 2021 in his continued studies towards priestly ordination. James is an avid guitarist and hockey fan/player with a particular love for philosophical literature – especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas and Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky.