While it is true that becoming a Catholic priest requires great strength — of faith, character, and discipline — nowhere is it said the successful candidate should be able to lift approximately three washing machines.
Nowhere is it said he shouldn't, either.
Meet the aspiring world’s strongest man … of the cloth.
He is Toledo native Will Heller, who on a recent summer day was hard at work.
In a gym outside Marquette, Mich., where he just graduated from Northern Michigan University, the weightlifter with Olympic dreams loaded the equivalent of three Maytags on his back and squatted 610 pounds. (Fortunately for the poor barbell, it could not accommodate any more weight. “I kind of ran out of room,” Heller said.)
Then he went upstairs in pursuit of his higher calling.
The gym is a converted fallout shelter in the basement of the century-old St. Paul Church. Heller is a parish intern, and his days are filled with hours of prayer — among many other acts of devotion — as he prepares to enter the seminary. The two-time All-American lifter hopes to be on his way from the platform to the pulpit.
A working slogan for his possible future parish: Our father can beat up your father.
OK, maybe not.
Heller — although his Bunyanesque beard and biceps may appear intimidating on the rare occasion he isn’t smiling — is too nice for that.
Still, his future conjures a delightful juxtaposition just the same.
He will continue to straddle his two worlds — as a vein-popping, eye-bulging competitive bar bender and a joyful student of God.
In fact, just to be safe, Heller will pack his own barbell when he reports next month to Saint Paul Seminary in Minnesota.
“Thank God my bishop is letting me compete,” he said. “I don’t have to hang up the shoes just yet. We’ll take it year by year. The bishop said, ‘If your academics or prayer life are faltering, then the lifting will have to go.’ So we have that mutual understanding. I trust the Lord has a plan. I’m excited.”
Good for him.
As Heller sets off on the next stage of his spiritual odyssey — the plan: seven years in seminary — he knows it is … a lot.
It’s a road he could not have imagined just 18 months ago, and don’t get him wrong. “There’s a lot of fear, too,” he said.
But he believes his call to serve is meant to be.
At Northern Michigan, Heller found great success as an Olympic weightlifter, making several national and world teams. Just last month, he placed fifth at USA Weightlifting Nationals in Pittsburgh.
He also found a new relationship with God.
That’s not to say he went in cold.
A cradle Catholic, like his parents, Jim and Janice, Heller enjoyed attending school at Christ the King, then St. Francis de Sales, where he was a starting lineman on the Knights’ football team.
But if he were being honest, the theology classes could be a little boring. “I didn’t have a really deep faith life,” he said.
That changed in college as he began going to events at the campus ministry, then daily Mass.
His mind opening as it did came gradually — the seeds included a radiant priest, an enthusiastic missionary, and a rising desire within to similarly bring others to the Lord — then suddenly.
It was just before Christmas break in 2022. Fr. Dustin Larson, the chaplain of the campus ministry, saw a “beautiful conviction that had been lit on fire in Will’s heart” and asked Heller if he’d ever thought of the priesthood as a vocation.
Good one.
“‘Haha. Very funny, father,’” Heller said. “I’m thinking, ‘Hell, no. Just because a guy goes to daily Mass doesn’t mean I want to be a priest! … Only children don’t become priests. I want a wife and a family.’”
And that was that.
Until it wasn’t.
After blowing off the question for months, the more he gave it thought, and the more he felt a kind of ethereal pull, the more he said he realized, “I can’t run from this anymore.”
With that, he said, “I had an overwhelming sense of peace.”
The next step was applying to seminary and calling his parents.
Dad was thrilled. Mom is … coming around. (“God love her,” Will said, “she wants grandkids.”)
“It took me a quick minute to realize this was going to happen, but, once I digested it, it made complete sense,” said Jim, best known as the radio voice of the Toledo women’s basketball team. “We’re very proud. We couldn’t ask for a better kid.”
Now, for Heller, it is off to school, and — while his studies and spiritual life will take priority — just maybe the next big competition, where he hopes to use the literal platform of weightlifting to spread the good word.
Imagine a seminarian in a cassock walking in with Team USA at the opening ceremonies of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Never say never.
(For the CliffsNotes refresher on what the heck we’re talking about, Olympic weightlifting features two lifts: the snatch and clean and jerk. In the first, competitors raise the bar from the ground to above the head in one fell movement. In the second, they bring the bar to their chest, then jerk it above the head in a quick-twitch, two-part action. Their score is based on the combined total of the two lifts. The 6-foot, 212-pound Heller is just 21 and finished fifth in his weight category at nationals, lifting more than 700 pounds. Countries can send one lifter per category to the Olympics.)
“I’ll just keep at it, and, if the Lord wants me to use weightlifting for evangelization by making a senior team and making great progress, it’s going to happen,” Heller said. “If not … ”
Well, there’s no shame in being one of the world’s strongest preacher men.
Fr. Larson considered the unique possibilities.
“What if he was assigned at some point into a town where, for example, there’s a giant football rivalry or where athletics was a big deal?” he said. “Can you imagine him getting in there with the football team and … benching more weight?
“There would be an instant respect that would be earned, and, if this priest is filled with the joy of the gospel and the Holy Spirit, to be able to have that connection there and to use that connection to share the teachings of Jesus Christ, that’s just one way the athletics side can play a strong role in reaching a lot of students.”
Heller looks forward to the journey, leaving us with one request.
“Please pray for me,” he said.
For those inclined, let us oblige, just as Heller is praying for us.
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