Dick Kiernan rents a room in his New Hampshire home to a man from his church. In his account of Catholic men’s ministry in Uganda, that ordinary arrangement becomes a way to support missionary leaders thousands of miles away.
“With $800 a month, I can hire five Pauls in Uganda by renting a room in my house,” Kiernan said.
Paul is a Ugandan ministry leader Kiernan first met through an Alpha connection in 2007. Their relationship became part of a wider effort to develop Men of St. Joseph International across Uganda and into neighboring countries.
For Kiernan, the work begins with men taking responsibility for their own spiritual lives and families. From there, it reaches into parishes, dioceses and the wider world.
“We start in our own lives. We start in our own families. We start in our own parish,” he said. “But then the global mission comes. So there’s an order to it.”
Addressing Catholic men’s ministry leaders, Kiernan described a mission built around finding local leaders, supporting their work and forming them to develop other missionary disciples. He said Men of St. Joseph International had reached 26 countries, with its stated mission extending to every diocese and every parish in the world.
“The harvest is great. Send workers into the field,” he said.
A call to protect and serve
Kiernan described his ministry background as 36 years of full-time work, including 13 years in the Diocese of Manchester’s office of spiritual renewal and 15 years with Alpha New England. He joined the Men of St. Joseph global team after its 2024 gathering in Rome.
The work remains personal. Kiernan said he has five adult children and is praying for two to return to the faith. Another had recently returned.
His account of the movement’s beginnings reached back to men’s retreats in New Hampshire in the 1980s and the launch of Men of St. Joseph in 1994. Years of retreats, Cursillo and charismatic renewal had already brought men together. In 1994, he said, the ministry reached 30 parishes in one year.
New England bishops subsequently asked whether it could spread across the region.
Kiernan credited the Promise Keepers’ approach to ambassador teams and church teams with helping Catholic leaders organize their work. The underlying call, he said, was for men to give themselves in service.
“We’re all called to give up our lives to care for others,” he said.
He pointed to his longtime collaborator Don, a retired firefighter, and to police officers and priests as examples of men whose work involves protecting or serving others.
“Like St. Joseph, husband, father, worker, protector of the family, protector of the church, we’re called to be missionary disciples,” Kiernan said. “Those are how we appeal to men.”
From one parish to a province
In Uganda, Kiernan said, growth has come through introductions, parish gatherings and relationships with clergy.
He described meeting a priest named Father Joseph at a retreat center near Kampala. The priest invited him to Jinja, where Kiernan met men from the parish, including Matthias, a leader in his diocese’s men’s association.
Matthias became a provincial leader, helping bring Men of St. Joseph into his own diocese and then into others.
On a return visit in 2026, Kiernan said, a gathering drew 70 leaders representing 22 of the diocese’s 44 parishes. The following day brought another meeting with 25 men.
“We go to places. We talk to the men. We talk to their priests. We talk to bishops, and we tell them what we’re doing,” he said.
Kiernan said a bishop he identified as Bishop Francis had become an episcopal advocate in Uganda, introducing the ministry to fellow bishops and giving the team an office in his home diocese.
“Everywhere we go, we are seeking to be in union with the local bishop,” Kiernan said. “We have chaplains in all of our Men of St. Joseph groups.”
At the time of the presentation, he said the effort had reached about 13 of Uganda’s 19 dioceses. The team hoped to reach all 19 by the end of that year.
The scale of some gatherings left him overwhelmed. He described visiting a parish with more than 800 Men of St. Joseph members and attending an occasion that brought together five bishops and about 4,000 people from the diocese.
“I’m thinking of Peter when he had a big catch of fish,” Kiernan said. “Go away from me, Lord. I’m a sinful man. My life is never going to be the same with these opportunities that we have.”
Pray for them, fund them, form them
Behind the visits is what Kiernan called the “home team”: people who support particular leaders through prayer, funding and formation.
“We adopt leaders. We pray for them. We fund them. And we form them so that they can be effective leaders,” he said.
Some supporters have family or professional connections overseas. Others develop a relationship with a missionary or support a provincial leader through their parish men’s group.
Kiernan described an initial sponsorship of $150 a month, divided into a $100 stipend, $35 for ministry expenses and $15 for administration. During questions, he said provincial leaders’ support could reach about $300 to $325 a month to include travel, training and administration. He reported that the team was funding six leaders for a combined $1,750 a month.
His own contribution included the income from renting a room. He used Paul’s reported government salary of $120 a month to illustrate the purchasing power of American support.
The emphasis, Kiernan said, is on investing in people who can form other people.
“We are putting all of our funds into forming these leaders so that men can become missionary disciples,” he said.
He estimated that the African work had reached about 26,000 people, including conference attendees. He described conferences as a beginning, with regular involvement and transformed lives as the goal.
Seventy-two hours for a transformed life
Kiernan summarized the Men of St. Joseph formation model as 72 hours a year: a monthly parish gathering, an annual conference and an annual retreat.
“The Men of St. Joseph is about the transformation of men to be husbands, fathers, workers, protectors of the family, protectors of the church, missionary disciples,” he said. “This is our vision.”
He drew on Teresa of Avila’s spiritual framework to describe a progression: deliverance from mortal sin, a transformed life through abiding in the Lord, and a well-ordered life in which every area becomes fruitful.
“This is very much a spiritual mission,” Kiernan said. “We’re equipping men to become spiritual leaders that can multiply missionary disciples.”
Existing men’s associations can become partners in that work. Kiernan said the team seeks opportunities to collaborate with Catholic groups while bringing its particular emphasis on spiritual formation and discipleship.
He also argued that American parish and diocesan leaders already possess experience they can share overseas: organizing introductory meetings, speaking with clergy, conducting conferences and retreats, and developing leadership teams.
“If you can do all those things, then you’re qualified to mentor someone or to go and help start them,” he said.
Forming the leaders themselves takes sustained work. Kiernan pointed to biblical studies, Church history, Vatican II and subsequent Church documents, discipleship and leadership skills as subjects under consideration for their training.
“It took Jesus three years to form his leaders,” he said. “So it’s going to take us time.”
Local men leading their own mission
Asked about working across cultures, Kiernan began with listening.
“You have to talk to them. You have to find out what their lives are like,” he said. “You have to listen to them and find out what their culture history is.”
His goal is for local men to take responsibility for the work. He described teams covering outreach, prayer and formation, communications and events, Church relationships and funding.
“My goal is that all of these guys would take up all those positions and that I would work myself out of a job,” Kiernan said.
“Everywhere we go, we’re seeking to have local leaders take over their mission.”
He said the wider vision includes continental teams that can sustain their own work. Funding remains a constraint, but developing leaders who can form other leaders is an even greater one.
“Our leaders, forming them and their leaders being formed, those are other key limiting factors,” he said.
“Lord, here I am, use me”
Kiernan’s invitation to the audience began with prayer and the relationships already present in their lives.
“Pray, ‘Lord, here I am, use me,’” he said. “The starting point is pray. Consider the global connections you have.”
He described possible introductions through men from other countries, missionary priests and clergy serving in American dioceses. Those relationships, he said, can lead to local people prepared to build the ministry.
Other ways to participate include funding a leader, joining the quarterly news distribution, arranging conversations with parish leaders or exploring a missionary trip. A group could also develop a relationship with a province or country.
Kiernan said another global gathering in Rome was planned for November 2027, offering a chance to meet leaders from different countries.
“The mission field is open,” he said. “It’s available for the Lord’s guidance.”
The opportunities carry a personal cost. Near the close, Kiernan returned to the sense that the work had changed the course of his life.
“All these opportunities scares me to death,” he said.
His response was to invite more men into the work: to pray, to support a leader and to help another man become capable of carrying the mission himself.
This talk is one of many from the Heroic Men: Future of Catholic Men 2026 Convocation. Get the replays and the PDF ebook free, here.