Maria Annoni

Blending a doctorate in music theory, a master’s in theology, and over forty years of liturgical ministry, this story captures Maria Annoni’s graceful emergence from a dedicated church leader into a priest and pastor.

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A native of Duluth, MN, I grew up on the western shores of Lake Superior, and the sounds of the lake still call me home. I was the oldest of four girls and two boys in a very Catholic family. Catholic education, church life and liturgical ministry played a significant role in my academic and ministerial development: singing in the children’s choir and later the adult choir; playing the organ for school Masses and later for parish liturgies; participating in parish youth activities of all kinds; eventually leading the parish in the first “folk/guitar masses” after Vatican II.

My parents believed in the integrity and wholeness of a Catholic education. They made sure all of us attended parochial schools elementary through secondary, although my sister and I were the only ones who continued with a Catholic college education. They also gave all of us children the opportunity to play musical instruments, with the piano always the starting point. An accomplished musician as a child, I began playing the organ at mass by the time I was 10 years old. As a young adult, I added singing and playing the guitar. My playing the organ for church was really no big deal. I was asked to do it since I was taking piano lessons at the time, and “Sister Mary ______” thought of me when the parish organist had quit or died; I don’t remember which. 

When Vatican II was revolutionizing the Church during the late 1960s and early 1970s, I thrived on liturgy and liturgical music. I reveled in the musical and liturgical changes at the time—the physical change in the worship space, the inclusion of the assembly, liturgy spoken in the vernacular, more scripture at Mass and other liturgies, and an openness to ecumenism. There was also a far-reaching, radical idea of possibly, just possibly, allowing women into the priesthood. My gifts as musician, vocalist, keyboardist, and guitarist eventually inspired me to create music in many venues all of my life: teaching people of all ages the wonders of music; singing in choirs of all kinds; playing guitar for a variety of events, large and small, locally, nationally, and internationally. 

I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Education from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota in 1976; a Master of Arts in 1982 and a PhD in Historical Music Theory in 1989 from The Ohio State University; and a Master of Arts in Theology with an emphasis on Scripture from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota in 2016. Although I had already done my graduate education much earlier, I returned many years later to St. John’s—a Benedictine institution—to prepare for the priesthood.

I never entered the convent. However, I always maintained close relationships with the Benedictine sisters of St. Scholastica who taught me, with whom I worked and taught school and who embraced me as one of their own. I did contemplate joining them because I tended to follow the “Ora et labora” of the tradition, but in the end, I found that I couldn’t. At first, I surmised that I had “obedience” issues, but later on I realized that something or someone else, was beckoning me to expand my horizons. Who would have known that my obedience was to be “prophetic.” The Benedictine sisters showed me how to be imaginative, creative, and autonomous. They taught me to be strong and to stand tall. That inspiration led me to explore the world far beyond my  place of birth and young adulthood in Duluth, MN.

I have been a leader in training liturgical musicians, parishioners, and priests, in the implementation of the philosophy and tenets of Vatican II. I have been a liturgical minister for well over forty years—in parishes and campus ministry. When I was attending graduate school at Ohio State, I was the Assistant to the Music Director at St. Thomas More Newman Center at the university where I planned liturgies, played guitar, was a cantor and a full-time Director of Music and Liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church for twenty-one years.  

After eleven years at St. Thomas More Newman at Ohio State, I returned to Minnesota to become Director of Music and Liturgy at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, the second largest parish in the Diocese of Duluth. It was a full-time salaried position that required me to plan all liturgies and direct the choir, the small ensemble, and all the instrumentalists. I assisted with all school liturgies. I trained cantors, organists, Communion ministers, and lectors. And I guided priests, especially the new ones, through the inner workings of liturgy.

The goal was to involve as many parishioners as possible in the liturgy and parish celebrations. Tenets of Vatican II—liturgy, new ways to use worship space, spiritual opportunities for all, and hospitality to everyone who entered—were valuable components of our parish life. When the parish realized that the old church building made this difficult to achieve, the decision was made to build a new facility. In 2000, St. Joseph’s dedicated its new space and invited the entire city and region to come and celebrate. What a glorious  experience. I retired from that job because, after 21years of dedicated service, I was forced out because I am LGBTQIA+.

My prophetic call to priesthood hit me over the head at one of my trips to Call To Action in Milwaukee. I volunteered to play and sing for a couple of the liturgies. One of those was the RCWP Mass. It was there that I met the soon to be ordained Martha Sherman. We spent a lot of time together, along with her partner and mine. At an RCWP presentation, the speaker asked who in the audience has ever thought about having a call and becoming a priest. I found myself standing with several women. My partner was totally shocked, but Martha Sherman said, “I knew it!” Shortly thereafter, I inquired, applied, and started attending RCWP events and ordinations, even playing for ordinations. I realized that my call was right in front of me all the time. Because of the Church, that call could never be fulfilled. As a director of music and liturgy in the  institutional church, I was as close to being a priest as I could be in the Church; but with RCWP, I knew I would be able to take my rightful place at the table of service to the community. 

After I was accepted in to the formation program and completed the preparations, I was ordained a deacon on August 6, 2016, at Holy Wisdom Monastery, in Middleton, Wisconsin. I was ordained a priest on May 7, 2017 in Sartell, Minnesota at the First United Methodist Church. I currently serve the Spirit of Christ the Healer Catholic Community in Grand Rapids, Minnesota as its pastor.

As I have developed into a priest and pastor of a community, I realized that all my life experiences—academics, teaching methods, liturgical skills, and musical expertise—have come together to form a prophetic spirituality, enabling me to serve people with compassion, justice and equality, joy and hope. None of these suddenly appeared; they gracefully emerged.