Father Maxwell enjoys ‘togetherness in the Church’ he experiences in Richmond
Father Joseph Maxwell Appiagyei is one of those rare people who, as an adult, became what he said he would become when he was a child.
“We were having dinner. My father asked, ‘What do you want to be in your future?’ I said, ‘I want to be a priest.’ He got quiet. And he asked me again, ‘Doctor? Engineer? Pharmacist?’ I said, ‘Even if I become all of those, I will become a priest.’”
On Tuesday, July 19, Father Maxwell, a priest of the Diocese of Obuasi, Ghana, and pastor of St. Peter Pro-Cathedral, St. Patrick, and St. John, Richmond, celebrated 25 years of priesthood with a Mass at St. John.
“He was surprised to hear that. He used to be an altar server and had wanted to become a priest, but he couldn’t make it. My mother wanted me to become a priest, too,” Father Maxwell, 54, said. “I am happy about that.”
While his father was Catholic and his mother Anglican, Father Maxwell said that was not a problem.
“I had faith-filled parents,” said the fifth of seven children born to Peter and Victoria Appiagyei. “My mother was faithful to God; my father was faithful, too,” he said.
In 1990, at the age of 23, Father Maxwell entered St. Paul Major Seminary, Accra, for a year of discernment and two years of philosophical studies. His bishop sent him to Rome for formation at the International Ecclesiastical Seminary and for theological studies at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology in 1996.
Shortly before Father Maxwell was ordained a deacon that year, he experienced what he termed “the happiest moment in my life” — his mother became Catholic.
“It had been my job to bring her home to the Catholic Church,” he said.
Father Maxwell returned to the Diocese of Obusai for a pastoral year program before being ordained a priest in 1997. His first assignment was as parochial vicar at the Cathedral of St. Thomas, Obusai, where he served for five years. In 2002, he returned to the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross to study moral theology. He received his licentiate in 2004.
For the next 15 years, Father Maxwell ministered in his home diocese as an acting pastor at one parish, pastor of another, and as rector of the Cathedral of St. Thomas. In diocesan administration, he was director of the Vocations and Youth Offices, and vicar general and moderator of the curia for the diocese. He also served as a dean, a member of the priests’ council and college of consultors, and on the personnel board. As an adjunct lecturer, he taught moral theology at St. Gregory the Great Provincial Major Seminary.
During the summers of 2010- 2012, Father Maxwell assisted at the Shrine Church of St. Jude and Our Lady of Guadalupe, Brooklyn, N.Y. He wanted to continue ministering in the United States, but his request to do so was put on hold when the bishop of Obusai was named archbishop of Kumasi.
“My bishop was transferred (in 2012),” Father Maxwell said about his request to undertake “another ministry” in the United States. “We had to take care of the diocese before the new bishop arrived. We couldn’t travel (outside the country) until 2014.”
When the new bishop arrived, he asked the priest to wait “just for a while” until things got settled.
Father Maxwell came to the Diocese of Richmond in July 2019, and was appointed parochial vicar of St. Edward the Confessor, Richmond, and chaplain of Blessed Sacrament Huguenot Catholic School, Powhatan. In July 2021, he was named administrator of his current parishes, and this July 1 was named pastor of them.
Father Maxwell said he enjoys ministering in Richmond, noting that the pace is slower than it is in the Diocese of Obusai.
“In Ghana we have to do so many things,” he explained. “I’d have to do my parish and 25 different mission churches — run around to all those mission churches. Here, it is a bit relaxed.”
The jubilarian likes moving among the congregations of his three parishes.
“I can spend more time with the people,” he said. “I enjoy the togetherness we have in the Church.”
Reflecting on his priesthood, Father Maxwell said, “Looking at how far the Lord has brought me, 25 years in his vineyard, I would like to join the psalmist to gladly say: ‘the cup of salvation I will lift up and call upon the name of the Lord for he has remembered me in my lowly state, therefore to him be the glory forever.’”