Peter J. Daly

Father Peter Daly grew up on the South Side of Chicago, one of eight children. He attended Catholic schools throughout high school and then the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he received his BA in Religious Studies. For five years after college, he built housing for poor and handicapped people in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia through a small non-profit corporation he established. Peter received his JD from Catholic University and practiced law in the nation’s capital. Feeling the call to the priesthood, he entered the seminary and was sent to the North American College in the Vatican, where he lived for five years. He holds an STB degree from the Gregorian University and an STL degree from the Lateran University, both in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Washington in 1986. He has served at various parishes, notably St. John Vianney in Prince Frederick, Maryland, where he has been pastor since 1994. He was a syndicated columnist for Catholic News Service for twenty years and has written for the Washington Post and the National Catholic Reporter. He has continued his commitment to housing for the poor, helping to found Safe Nights (a program for homeless men and women) and a major housing project in Nicaragua, which has built more than 220 houses in and around San Juan de Limay.