Fr. Edwin Gonsalves, who studied for the priesthood at the Toronto seminary from 1994 to 1999, will return there as rector beginning in March. Gonsalves, who spent most of the last 15 years in parish work, takes over from Msgr. Robert Nusca, the rector and president over the last 13 years.

Gonsalves is aware that he’s the first non-white rector of St. Augustine’s, but doesn’t think of that as the really significant change that comes with his appointment. He is also the first non-academic and will be the first who doesn’t hold the dual responsibilities of rector and president.

“I always thought of the rector as a professor or somebody who was teaching. I don’t know of any seminaries who have taken a priest from a parish, like a pastor,” Gonsalves said. “I think (Cardinal Thomas Collins’) reason for this is very strategic. Because at the end of the day all the men who are discerning at St. Augustine’s are discerning to be a diocesan priest, to serve people in a parish context.”

Having been a parish priest for 15 years, Gonsalves intends to bring that experience to the next generation of Toronto priests.

“You have the four pillars — you have the pastoral formation, you have the academic, you have the spiritual and you have the human formation — but how does that help the seminarian discern for parish life, for serving in a parish? That’s the key,” Gonsalves said.

Separating the roles of rector and president will allow both for more thorough priestly formation under the guidance of the rector and more dedicated institutional leadership under whomever is eventually named to that role, said Collins.

“With increasing programs and initiatives at St. Augustine’s, and the increasing demands upon the president-rector, which will grow in the years to come, it was decided to split the role of president and rector so that the rector would be freed to give total attention to the whole of priestly formation, which is the primary purpose of St. Augustine’s, while the president takes over responsibility for making sure the many other aspects of the program are developed and the resources needed for the work are available,” Collins said in an e-mail.

Gonsalves spent three years in seminary in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, before moving with his family to Toronto in 1994. With the exception of three years as director of the Office of Catholic Youth, he has served exclusively in Toronto parishes.