09/06/2026
GETTING TO KNOW FR. RICHARD
Born in the Bronx in 1966, Fr. Richard Crawley is the youngest of four boys. After the untimely death of his mother due to a flu outbreak in 1973, Richard’s father moved his grieving family to Wallkill in the same year. Richard made his First Communion at Most Precious Blood in Walden and then made his Confirmation at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Gardiner, where he later was an altar server.
He entered the Capuchins in 1993 and made his final vows at St. Joseph Church in New Paltz (1998). A graduate of Dutchess Community College in 1992 and Seton Hall University in 1998, he completed degrees in literature and biblical studies. He completed a master’s degree at Boston College in Theology in 2006. Fr. Richard was ordained as transitional deacon in 2008 and ordained to the priesthood in 2009 on the feast day of St. Francis. His first Mass was here at St. Joseph’s in 2009.
His ministry experience began as a hospital chaplain where he oversaw the Pastoral Care Department in Brookhaven Hospital in Patchogue, NY. After becoming CPE certified, he came to the realization that he was searching for his mother in the hospital. So, in 2001, he accepted a position as Campus Minister at Bowdoin College & USM in Brunswick, ME. In 2007, while on the Bowdoin campus, a professor, who was not Catholic or religious, came up to him and said, “What are you waiting for?” Richard was then accepted into the seminary program where he completed his Master of Divinity at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry in 2008.
In 2008, he was stationed in Rutland, VT as chaplain of St. Joseph College. In 2010 he became the administrator of St. Alphonsus Church in Pittsford, Vt. When his father started declining 2013, he took a position at St. Thomas More Boarding School as chaplain while being stationed at St. Pius X Friary in Middletown, CT in order to be closer to his father. His father’s death was in 2017 and the funeral was held here at St. Joseph’s.
Fr. Richard was then stationed in Interlaken, N.Y. where he was chaplain to Cayuga Correctional from 2018 to 2023. He then accepted the position of administrator of three parishes in West Rutland & Proctor in Vermont and was also the Associate Pastor of St. Peter's Church in Rutland, VT before being nominated Pastor of St. Joseph in New Paltz.
Looking back on all his experiences, Fr. Richard simply claims - "I am the Lord's beachball that gets knocked around the stadium of life...but what enjoyment it is!"
