Profile in Faith: Rev. Robert A. Sinatra

In eighth grade, Rob Sinatra was voted "Most Likely to Forgive."

Maybe the other children knew something.

Today he is a priest, a new priest - and thus a rarity in an era in which fewer and fewer men choose that path.

"Everybody assumes the priesthood is all about giving things up - it's not the best-paying job in the world, you give up the concept of marriage, of having a family," said Sinatra, 32, associate pastor at Christ the King Church in Haddonfield. "... It's something we hand over to God as a gift."

The number of men entering seminaries to become priests has dropped dramatically, from 16,000 a year in the late 1960s to fewer than 2,000 a year now.

Nonetheless, the priesthood should remain male and celibate, he said, citing historical basis for the former and historical and practical reasons for the latter.

"There are still people out there who are being called to be priests. It's just there's a lot of noise in the world, and it's hard for them to listen. While there are priests that have done some horrible, terrible things and need to be accountable for that, there are more that are laboring in the Lord's vineyard."

Sinatra says he knew he wanted to be a priest at age 11. Yet he didn't rush to the seminary.

At Trenton State College he studied psychology - and in some ways moved away from the church, living the role of the typical college guy, dating girls and hanging out with friends.

"I wasn't a hell-raiser, pardon the pun," he said. But he also didn't feel he was leading the life God wanted for him.

After college, Sinatra worked at an agency that provided care to the mentally ill. In 1998, seeing joyful faces around him at a religious retreat in Ohio, he knew he faced a decision.

"I had kind of a little one-on-one with God - and God won," said Sinatra, who graduated from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and was assigned to Christ the King Church two years ago.

"There have been days I've been frustrated," he said. "But there's never been a day I didn't want to be a priest."

- Jeff Gammage