CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2024 / 17:45 pm

Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer of Atlanta was elected chairman of the board of the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) for a three-year term earlier this week, the organization announced on Thursday.

The largest, private professional education association in the world, the NCEA works with nearly 140,000 Catholic educators to serve 1.6 million students in Catholic education. The organization provides annual data on Catholic schools in the U.S. as well as professional development and public policy resources to support intellectual and faith formation.

“We want to be a continual resource for superintendents, principals, and faculties of Catholic schools as they continue to create Catholic leaders of tomorrow,” Hartmayer told CNA.

Hartmayer has worked in Catholic education for upwards of 10 years during his 44 years of priesthood and now serves on the board of trustees at two seminaries: St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, and St. John Vianney College and Seminary in Miami.

Hartmayer holds three master’s degrees: a master of divinity degree from St. Anthony-on-Hudson in Rensselaer, New York; a master of arts degree in pastoral counseling from Emmanuel College, Boston; and a master of education degree from Boston College — in addition to a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from St. Hyacinth College and Seminary in Massachusetts.

A member of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, a religious community founded by St. Francis of Assisi, Hartmayer has served Atlanta as archbishop since May 2020, following his service as bishop of Savannah, Georgia, from 2011.

Hartmayer has worked in Catholic education since the start of his priesthood. He served as a guidance counselor and then principal at Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore from 1985–1987. In 1988, he was appointed principal at Cardinal O’Hara in Tonawanda, New York, and then served as principal of St. Francis High School in Hamburg, New York, until 1994.

He spent many years in New York and Massachusetts, but in 1995, he moved south to teach at a Catholic high school in Florida before being asked to serve as pastor of St. Philip Benizi Church in Jonesboro, Georgia, where he served for 15 years as a pastor.

Hartmayer is currently the chairman of the USCCB subcommittee for communications and a member of the board for CLINIC. He made headlines earlier this year for advocating on behalf of an intellectually disabled Georgia man condemned to death.