VATICAN CITY — For Charles Warner, the journey from Michigan to Rome was measured in more than miles.
The Midland-born seminarian with the Diocese of Saginaw discovered his passion to pursue a life in the clergy after a series of academic and professional endeavors failed to stoke his inner fire.
Now, as a third-year student pursuing the priesthood at Pontifical North American College in Vatican City, Warner anticipates he will be within view of the smoke signals expected to signal the election of a new pope in the coming days.
“My university said, ‘if white smoke goes up, classes are canceled immediately,’” Warner said. “If I see that, I’ll run to (St. Peter’s Square), if I’m not there already.”
Having a front-row seat to the transition of power for the Catholic Church — an organization with 1.4 billion followers globally — was not an experience Warner predicted would accompany his studies in Rome. After all, only three popes have been in power during Warner’s lifetime.
That front-row experience included participating in the daily rosary prayer that was scheduled at St. Peter’s Square in support of Pope Francis as he struggled with his health in recent weeks.
And, after Pope Francis died the day after Easter Sunday last month, Warner was tasked with helping to distribute the Holy Communion sacrament — the offering of bread and wine meant to represent the body and blood of Jesus Christ — to the faithful present in St. Peter’s Square on the day of the pope‘s funeral.
Warner mourned for the pope with the rest of the faithful.
That focus changed in recent days, though, as Catholic Church leaders there prepared for the Conclave, or the process that will involve 132 sequestered Vatican cardinals choosing the 267th pontiff.
“I just have a lot of comfort that the next pope will be the right pope,” Warner said. “I’m comforted by the process and by the movement of the Holy Spirit.”
The search for such comfort led him down that path that landed him in Vatican City, Warner said.
A 2009 graduate of Saginaw Township-based Heritage High School, Warner studied at the University of Michigan, where he received a master’s degree in biomedical engineering.
He worked for six years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D.C., before realizing he desired to follow a different path in life.
“I was working, I had a girlfriend, I had good friends; Everything was working out but I just didn’t really feel fulfilled,” Warner said. “It made me reflective of my relationship with the church and my relationship with God and what I was doing with my life. I started a time of prayer, reading scripture, talking with the priests, and that led me to becoming more connected with God and what he wants for me.”
Warner attended a retreat for men considering priesthood.
“And I hated it,” he said. “And then what followed was a real deep sadness, a real deep loneliness, because I said ‘no’ to what God was asking of me.”
Warner said he eventually “had enough of that feeling,” and decided to join the seminary.
“It was like peace and joy since that moment, and it’s stayed with me,” he said.
While Warner could have studied for the priesthood in Michigan, he said Diocese of Saginaw’s Bishop Robert Gruss approached Warner about seeking that education at the home of the Catholic Church.
“Not everyone gets to come to Rome,” Warner said. “After praying on it, I said, ‘yes.’”
He began his studies there in 2022.
“It’s kind of like becoming a doctor except, instead of a doctor of the body, you become a doctor of the soul,” Warner said.
Outside of return visits home to Michigan and missions in both Nepal and India, Warner has spent much of the last three years at Pontifical North American College in Vatican City.
The facilities there are about a 10-minute walk from St. Peter’s Basilica, considered by followers as one of the holiest Catholic shrines. Warner said he is scheduled in October to be ordained as a transitional deacon, a step in the process for individuals seeking ordination to the priesthood.
Of about 120 students at the college, Warner is the lone seminarian from the Diocese of Saginaw, the Saginaw Township-based organization that covers 11 Eastern Michigan counties that 100,000 Catholics call home.
Warner said he is on track to return to Michigan and serve as a priest at a parish within the Diocese of Saginaw within two years.
To listen to Warner discuss his experiences pursuing the priesthood, the Diocese of Saginaw podcast series “United in Mission: One Heart and Mind” features a 24-minute interview with him at saginaw.org/Podcasts.
In a second diosese-produced podcast, Warner discusses the experience of studying in Rome during the transition between popes. That video is available at vimeo.com/1082245622.
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