Angie Galleno is the new face on campus at Saint John’s Catholic Prep in Frederick.  She is the school’s first full time campus minister.  Hailing from San Diego, California, Angie is originally from Jackson, Mississippi. 

Despite the large size of her previous parish (15,000 families) where she was Director of Religious Education, Angie’s encounters with youth were infrequent.   Now, at
St. John’s, Angie spends every hour of every day directly involved with the school’s 303 teens - a job she finds “both daunting and beautiful.”

Angie definitely feels led by the Holy Spirit in her.  Answering the call of evangelization, Angie challenges herself to make the non-Catholic students feel a part of the community, by making the faith speak to them as well, without diminishing the school’s Catholic identity.  For all the students, she strives to make the experience of the faith, making it something “they can really get their hands on.”  Under her guidance, the students actively participate in the monthly liturgies, as musicians and singers, lectors, and, hopefully in the near future, as Eucharistic ministers. 

Angie’s very apparent comfort in parish work is easy to understand – she literally grew up in it.  With a mother who was employed at their local Mississippi parish, and later, the Diocese of Jackson, Angie spent plenty of time beside her mother in the church and parish environment.  Angie has memories of playing jacks on the kitchen floor with the priest when she was a child.

A graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans, Angie moved to California, where she taught second grade at St. Patrick Parish School in Carlsbad.  Following the birth of her children, she stopped teaching in order to stay home.  She remained actively involved in her parish, St. Patrick, leading an RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) group and eventually stepped up to the job of Director of Religious Education, a position she held until her recent relocation to Frederick.

Angie and her husband, Michael, reside in Middletown and have three children, Paul, 13; Mary Helen, 10; and Anna Grace, 6.  She admits to missing her life in California, but is grateful for the warm and welcoming coworkers and friends she is meeting in Central Maryland.

“Wherever God has put you, that is your vocation”
                                     Mother Theresa 

Blessed Mother Theresa’s words truly reflect Angie’s feelings about where she presently finds herself.  She feels strongly that she has been relocated to Maryland for a specific purpose, and with God’s help she will be able to impact the students to whom she ministers at Saint John’s Catholic Prep.