Elgin native returns to lead St. Edward High
By Emily McFarlan emcfarlan@stmedianetwork.com June 11, 2012 3:58PM
Rev. David Finn
On being back at St. Ed
The Rev. David C. Finn has been a theology teacher, assistant principal and spiritual director at St. Edward Central Catholic High School. He will return as its superintendent later this month.
Meantime, he shared his three favorite things to do at the Elgin school:
1. Attend sporting events. (Finn graduated from Larkin High School in Elgin, but he said now, “I’m totally all Green Wave.”)
2. Kairos (Greek for “God’s Time”) retreats for juniors and seniors.
3. Teach.
Updated: July 13, 2012 6:15AM
ELGIN — St. Edward Central Catholic High School announced Monday that a familiar face — the Rev. David C. Finn — will be the school’s new superintendent.
Finn’s appointment by Rockford diocese Bishop David J. Malloy, is “really a homecoming,” the new superintendent said.
Not only is he an Elgin native, but Finn also was a part-time theology teacher at the high school as a newly-ordained priest from 2003 to 2005. And he was its assistant principal and spiritual director from 2006 to 2008.
“I know the community well. I feel like St. Edward is my home,” he said.
Finn has been spiritual director at Aurora Central Catholic High School.
He went back to school to get a degree in education administration from Dominican University in River Forest after he was ordained to the priesthood in 2003, he said. And, he said, “Most of my priesthood has been in the schools.”
“I’ve always had an interest in teaching and school work, and I just felt the Lord calling me, God calling me to pursue that gift.”
Finn announced his appointment in a letter sent Monday to parents of St. Edward students, he said.
In that letter, he thanked parents for trusting him with the education of their children.
And he said Monday that the high school of about 420 students at 335 Locust St. has a lot to offer the Elgin community: “Academic excellence, faith-filled formation of students, a family-centered education, a very tight-knit, close community” and a “Catholic identity.”
“I think we educate our students well and that we know each student, and we offer them a great education for four years,” he said.
Finn officially will begin his position at the school on June 29. He will succeed principal and superintendent the Rev. David A. Peck, who will return to pastor duties on July 1 at St. Rita Parish in Rockford.
St. Edward announced last year that layman Rich Thomas, who has been assistant principal and dean of students at the school for more than five years, would succeed Peck as principal.
The Rev. Edward Seisser, president of the St. Edward School Council, said at the time that it is “just a normal rotation for us” amid a shortage of priests that has forced many clergymen to go back and forth between the school and the pulpit.
