Priest named chaplain of Cristo Rey OKC
The Rev. Aaron Foshee will become the founding chaplain of Cristo Rey Oklahoma City Catholic High School, leaders of the school announced recently.
Foshee, a Jones native, will serve as a spiritual mentor for the school and its students, and he will oversee weekly Mass. He will continue to serve in his current role as the associate pastor at Christ the King Catholic Church.
Foshee was selected as Cristo Rey Oklahoma City’s school chaplain by the Most Rev. Paul S. Coakley, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
“Father Foshee is a dynamic young leader who has done a tremendous job forging connections with young Catholics,” Coakley said in a news release. “He will serve as an outstanding role model and an energizing spiritual mentor for Cristo Rey’s students.”
Cristo Rey is a new school that will open its doors to its first class of ninth-graders in August 2018.
Foshee was ordained to the priesthood in 2015. He has had assignments in Enid and Goltry before Coakley assigned him to become associate pastor at Christ the King in 2017.
Foshee said the task of helping to build a new school from the ground up is exciting, inspiring and even a bit intimidating.
“Every Cristo Rey OKC student, teacher and staff member — including myself — needs a certain amount of courage to embark on this journey together,” Foshee said in a news release. “It will be immensely rewarding, but it will be hard. As a spiritual leader, my role is to remind everyone involved in the school that Christ is king, and that means love is king.”
Cristo Rey OKC is part of the national Cristo Rey network known for exclusively serving families in underserved communities through a corporate work study program. Through the program, students work one day a week at local partnering companies, each of which pays them a stipend used to offset tuition costs. In addition to giving students valuable “real-life” work experience, the work study program also allows the school to offer affordable tuition available on a sliding scale based on the needs of each students’ family income.
At 31, Foshee is one of the youngest priests in Oklahoma. He says his youth allows him to “meet the enthusiasm and energy” of young Catholics like the incoming students at Cristo Rey OKC.
Renee Porter, the president of Cristo Rey OKC, shared similar sentiments.
“Anyone who has ever seen Father Foshee in action knows this is a person with a lot of energy and a lot of passion,” she said in a news release. “I think young men and women are drawn to that and respect it. They know this is a leader who really cares about their spiritual wellbeing and their future. All of that makes him a great fit for Cristo Rey OKC and our students.”