Fr. Christopher Woodall (click for bio)
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Parochial Administratorfr.christopher.woodallordinariate.net
Father Woodall was born in Alabaster, Alabama on October 29, 1972. He was raised halfway between Birmingham and Auburn on US 280. The city of Sylacauga is still home to most of his family members. His family of origin had little-to-no religious life. His grandmother was very devoted to her Baptist faith and made sure the kids all heard about Jesus and his word. However, his parents broke up before he was five years old, and church was not on the radar unless his grandmother insisted at Christmas and Easter. Consequently, he was baptized after the fashion of many protestants—3 different times! Altogether, it was a very simple, even spartan, childhood. Having made a profession of faith as a teenager he truly embraced the responsibility to hold on to the faith in a real and personal way.
After that decision, he moved with family to Sulphur Springs, Texas and finished high school there. A different and vibrant church environment encouraged him to pursue lifelong ministry with his native Baptist church. So, he took his college degree from East Texas Baptist University graduating in 1995 with a B.A. in Religion. In 1993 he was a summer missionary in Casino, New South Wales, Australia. During college, he met his future wife, Ronda, and they married in 1995 during his 1st year of graduate studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. They have been married [with dispensation of Pope Francis] for almost 28 years. His academic focus in seminary was Ignatius of Antioch and he aspired to become a professor and receive a Ph.D. under their resident patristics scholar. God did not allow him, perhaps like Jonah, to run from the original call to be a shepherd—even though the academy wooed him into its arms.
Having difficulty conceiving children became a frustration. Normal family and female doctors could only wonder at the infertility. Specialists made very public promises. Why not try? After asking what the Catholic Church believed about IVF and other fertility treatments, he insisted that the morality of the new medicine was not worth the breach of faith with sound teaching. Adoption is indeed, the loving option. The family then focused on that fashion of family building. Just then the desire to have children made him consider the religious instruction and even the baptism of their newly adopted baby boy. From studying the early Church, he came to question the validity of baptism in most of the protestant and evangelical churches. So, they moved into the Anglican Church, were confirmed, and baptized their son there. Their grown son, Trenton resides in the family home in Texas.
Having taught for two years at Ovilla Christian School near Red Oak, Texas, Fr. Woodall worked as a librarian for 12 years at his alma mater, DTS, where he’d received a Master of Theology (Th.M). After graduating protestant seminary in 2002 he began studying at UNT for a library science degree, yet God seemed to renew a call to vocational ministry. During those same years he prepared to be ordained in his new church home, the Anglican church. That’s when he earned another Th.M. from a diocesan house of formation called Cranmer Theological House in Dallas. He was ordained an Anglican minister July 11, 2009. He was then an Anglican minister for 10 years. The first year he was still employed in the seminary library until he spent 3 & ½ years as curate at the Anglican Cathedral in Dallas. Then he was a rector for 5 & ½ years at the Episcopal congregation in Cleburne, Texas. The same year he was ordained coincided with the announcement of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. This celebrated promulgation led to the erection of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the USA on January 1, 2012. Keeping tabs on its establishment and growth eventually drew him into full communion with the Church. A major influence on that decision was a Pilgrimage to Rome early in 2019. Later that year he resigned and renounced his orders from the Anglican ministry.
After coming into full communion with the Catholic Church, he prepared to become a Catholic priest with the Program of Priestly Formation through the Ordinariate chancery in Houston beginning in 2021. These were the quarantine years. He substituted in Public Schools, worked as a janitor, became an Insurance Producer, as well as a Facility Manager at the local minor league baseball team. His final position prior to ordination was at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School in Keller, Texas. There he was a librarian and PE assistant coach. He loves to go on pilgrimages and has been to Jerusalem, Rome, Dublin, Canada, and Australia.
He was ordained transitional deacon October 19, 2022, then a Catholic priest June 29, 2023 each time at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston—the Cathedral of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter. Honored to be chosen by Bishop Lopes (and simultaneously appointed by Archbishop Gregory) to become the priest at St. Luke's/St. Ignatius, Fr. Woodall anticipates loving the people and the area for many years. Since July 1, 2023, he has been the parochial administrator of both parishes.
