Associate Pastor

ZPresutti@sfxavier.org

Fr. Zachariah F. Presutti, S.J., was born and raised in Belmont, a small town in western New York outside Buffalo by two generous parents alongside his younger brother, Jacob. He met the Jesuits while studying for diocesan priesthood at Canisius College in Buffalo. After four years of serving as the Pastoral Associate at St. Paul’s Church in Kenmore, New York, he joined St. Andrew’s Hall Novitiate in Syracuse, New York where he did apostolic work in the local jail and supported victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse in an emergency shelter. Other apostolic work in the novitiate included Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, IL, and language studies at El Instituto de Idiomas in Cochabamba, Bolivia. During First Studies he obtained a Masters in Clinical Social Work at St. Louis University while interning at the local state correctional facility offering individual and group therapeutic interventions to men detained in administrative segregation (solitary confinement). After graduating, Zach founded Thrive for Life Prison Project in New York City. In collaboration and partnership with Jesuit parish communities, alums of Jesuit high schools and universities, Thrive for Life forms spiritual mentors to offer reflective and meditative resources for an examined life, rooted in the Ignatian spiritual tradition through monthly retreats in over six correctional facilities in the New York metropolitan area. Two years later, Zach opened Ignacio House of Studies in the Bronx, a transitional supportive living community for formerly incarcerated students as they continue their academic formation post-incarceration. Zach next earned a Masters in Divinity at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, CA. Prior to the pandemic he was offering weekly individual and group pastoral counseling at San Quentin State Prison and monthly retreats in other California State correctional facilities. He served as a deacon at St. Theresa’s Church in Oakland, CA. He now serves as the Associate Pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church in NYC and behind the prison walls as a chaplain to our incarcerated brothers and sisters.