Fr. John Raphael Hadnagy is a native of Woodbridge, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C.  His family settled there after his father was stationed in Washington by the Navy.  He is the oldest of four children.  “Fr. JR,” as he is sometimes called, credits his parents’ living out of gospel values with much of what pulled him to religious life.  “Even though we didn’t have much money, we always had enough food to add an extra place at our table for someone who didn’t have a place to eat or we had a pull-out sofa for someone who had no place to go.”

Fr. John Raphael entered the Conventual Franciscans in 1981 and did his undergraduate studies at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri and his graduate studies at the Washington Theological Union in Silver Spring, Maryland.  He made

Solemn Vows as a Conventual Franciscan Friar in July of 1988 and was ordained to the priesthood in October of 1990.  Since then, Fr. John Raphael has ministered in parishes in Lorain (3 years) and Carey (1 year), Ohio, Grand Rapids, Michigan (6 years) and Sellersburg, Indiana (5 years) and back to Carey, Ohio from 2005 until the present.

He has had the privilege of serving as chaplain for pilgrimages to such shrines as Lourdes (France), Fatima (Portugal), Medjugorje (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Knock (Ireland), Garabandal (Spain), Czestochowa (Poland), Loreto (Italy), Rue du Bac (Chapel of the Miraculous Medal-Paris), St. Faustina’s Convent in Poland, San Giovanni Rotondo (Padre Pio’s Tomb-Italy), Lanciano (Site of First Eucharistic Miracle-Italy) Santarem (Site of another Eucharistic Miracle-Portugal), the basilicas of Saints Francis and Clare in Assisi, Italy, the basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, the basilica of Saint John Lateran, the basilica of Saint Mary Major (all in Rome), as well as the catacombs of St. Callistus and St. Priscilla.

Fr. John has been involved in a ministry of healing for more than 18 years.  He continues to offer this ministry to parishioners and pilgrims in order to help make people more aware of the love and mercy of God in their lives and available to them all the time.