The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist are pleased to announce that Fr. Ed Fride has been selected as our
2012 Medal of St. Dominic Honoree.
Fr Ed was born in Duluth, Minnesota, the first of six children. He was baptized and raised in the Congregational Church but became Roman Catholic during his senior year in high school as a result of his involvement with the Charismatic Renewal.
While he was attending the University of Minnesota, majoring in physics, he experienced a call to the priesthood. He transferred to St. John Vianney College Seminary at the University of St. Thomas, where he received a BA in Theology. He also attended the University of Minnesota, where he received a BA in Jewish Studies, and St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he finished the coursework for a Master's in Scripture.
In 1980, he transferred to the Washington Theological Union in Silver Spring, Maryland, receiving a Master of Divinity degree in 1985. He also pursued graduate studies in counseling at the Catholic University of America and at Memphis State University.
He was ordained a priest on November 29, 1986, in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1989, because he wished to be part of the Word of God, an ecumenical charismatic community in Ann Arbor, he received permission from his bishop to serve in the Diocese of Lansing. He later transferred from the Diocese of Memphis to the Diocese of Lansing and was formally incardinated into the Diocese of Lansing in 1995.
He initially served as a parochial vicar for Christ the King Catholic Church in Ann Arbor. Fr. Ed was appointed pastoral administrator of Christ the King by Bishop Kenneth Povish in 1993 and was installed as the first Pastor of Christ the King by Bishop Carl Mengeling in 1997.
In recent years, Fr. Ed earned a bachelor's degree from Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, double majoring in philosophy and classical languages (2005), a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) through its affiliate campus at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit (2009), and a master's degree in philosophy from Holy Apostles Seminary in Connecticut (2011). He is currently working on a doctoral degree in New Testament Studies from Amridge University in Alabama.
He currently serves on the School Board for the Diocese of Lansing. He is also an adjunct instructor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary and Siena Heights University and for the Diocese of Lansing Diaconate Formation Program. He has served on the School Board of Fr. Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, where he had also served as chaplain, theology teacher, and principal. He is a past chaplain for Spiritus Sanctus Academy and for Huron Valley Catholic School. In addition to his active involvement in the Charismatic Renewal, he is also a member of the Secular Discalced Carmelites, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Dominic, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and the UDT-SEALs Association.