Fr. Ranjan D’Sa: What the Next Year Holds for Parish Life
Fr. Ranjan D'Sa, OCD, lays out what he expects to carry forward and what he expects to build as he begins a new
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Fr. Ranjan D’Sa, OCD, lays out what he expects to carry forward and what he expects to build as he begins a new pastorate this year.
OAKVILLE, ON / ACCESS Newswire / October 19, 2026 / Fr. Ranjan D’Sa spent ten years as pastor of Saint Dominic Parish in Oakville, Ontario, two full terms by the norms of his diocese. Starting October 1, he takes up a new post as pastor of St. Gregory the Great Parish in Cambridge, Ontario.
A move like this marks a natural point to think about what the year ahead actually looks like for a parish and the priest who leads it. Fr. D’Sa has spent the past decade watching how a parish changes over a ten-year span, and he expects some of that same arc to play out again in Cambridge, just on a faster clock in year one.
The First Months Set the Tone
Fr. D’Sa says the opening stretch at a new parish is less about changing anything and more about listening to what is already there. Every parish has its own rhythm: who shows up early for daily Mass, which ministries run on volunteer energy alone, where the quiet needs are that never make it into a bulletin announcement.
“You cannot shepherd people you have not sat with,” he says. “The first year is for sitting with them.”
He expects that pattern to hold at St. Gregory the Great. Visiting the sick, meeting with families, sitting in on the parish’s existing ministries. None of it is new work for him. It is the same work he did in Oakville, applied to a new community that does not yet know him.
Where He Sees Parish Needs Moving
Fr. D’Sa points to a few shifts he has watched build over his years in Oakville and expects to find again in Cambridge. More people are coming to him for spiritual counselling rather than general advice, a trend he connects to his own studies in pastoral care at Fordham. He also notes that young adults, more than any other group, are asking direct questions about prayer and suffering rather than settling for easy answers.
“People are not looking for a shorter homily,” he says. “They are looking for someone who will sit with a hard question instead of rushing past it.”
He also expects the coming year to bring more requests tied to loneliness, especially among the elderly and the homebound. Visiting hospitals and retirement homes has been part of his ministry for years, and he does not see that need shrinking. If anything, he expects it to grow as parishes work with smaller staffs and fewer volunteers than they once had.
What Does Not Change
Whatever a parish needs in a given year, Fr. D’Sa says the foundation underneath his work stays fixed. He is a Discalced Carmelite, formed by the spirituality of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, and that formation shapes how he reads every situation a parish brings to him, whether it is a wedding, a funeral, or a quiet conversation after Mass.
“The parish changes. The people change. What I bring to it does not,” he says. “Scripture, the writings of the early fathers, the discipline of prayer morning and evening. That is the same in Oakville or in Cambridge.”
He expects his first year at St. Gregory the Great to look, from the outside, like steady continuity: Masses said, confessions heard, the sick visited, youth engaged through the kind of street-level outreach he ran in Oakville. The outlook he offers is not a forecast of change for its own sake. It is a description of a priest doing the same work in a new place, and trusting that the work itself has not changed even when the parish has.
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About Fr. Ranjan D’Sa
Fr. Ranjan D’Sa, OCD, is a Catholic priest and member of the Discalced Carmelite Order. He was ordained to the priesthood in Mangalore, India, and later studied pastoral care and counselling at Fordham University in New York. He served for ten years as pastor of Saint Dominic Parish in Oakville, Ontario, and begins a new pastorate at St. Gregory the Great Parish in Cambridge, Ontario, on October 1. He is also a member of the Knights of Columbus.
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SOURCE: Fr. Ranjan D’Sa
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