When Father Joe Farrell was a Villanova University senior finishing his business degree in 1985, he began interviewing for jobs and kept hearing the same question: Are you willing to relocate?
And he’d give the same answer: No.
It’s not unusual for someone to want to stay close to where they grew up, and Farrell had spent his childhood in Drexel Hill before moving on to Villanova. But he sensed there was something more behind his reluctance. “If I really wanted a job in the business world, I would’ve said yes to a job on Mars,” he says.
Farrell’s reticence wasn’t really about geography—it was about vocation. Though he’d never felt a calling to the priesthood while at Monsignor Bonner High School or Villanova, something was clearly germinating. He decided to explore whether religious life might be his path. Once he determined it was, he pursued it wholeheartedly.
There’s some irony in the fact that the priesthood has taken someone who didn’t want to leave home across the United States and the Atlantic. “I keep saying to myself, ‘I’m the guy who didn’t want to relocate,’” says Farrell. “But I’ve done a lot of it. I’ve always felt right picking up and moving on. It’s never easy, especially when you have relationships. But I’ve been blessed to meet new people and develop new relationships while maintaining the old ones.”
“AFTER A FRIEND UNDERWENT HIP-REPLACEMENT SURGERY, FARRELL TEXTED HIM WITH GOOD WISHES. ATTACHED WAS A PHOTO OF FARRELL WITH POPE LEO. ‘MY FRIEND AND I ARE PRAYING FOR YOU’ THE MESSAGE READ.”
Farrell’s most recent move was his biggest. This past September, he was elected prior general of the worldwide Augustinian Order, making him responsible for its friars in roughly 50 countries. He’s now based in Rome, not far from his good friend and fellow Augustinian Pope Leo XIV. Farrell had spent the previous 12 years as vicar general and assistant general for North America. The Augustinians gathered in Rome this past September for their general chapter, and Farrell ran the proceedings.
When it came time to elect a new prior general, Father Rob Hagan knew the choice was obvious. “Who else were we going to vote for?” says Hagan, prior provincial of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova and a fellow Drexel Hill native. “He was doing the job in front of our eyes.”
Every night before dinner at the Farrell family’s Kenwood Road home, Joe’s father, Frank, would conclude grace with a prayer for vocations—and eventually those prayers were answered. Frank never had designs on one of his sons entering the priesthood, but they did have an uncle who did.
“When Joe said he was going to be a priest, I looked back and thought maybe Dad had a premonition,” says Frank’s younger brother, Tom, who runs the WorkShop Content Studios, a local production company.
Even if Farrell hadn’t given any real indication that it was in his future, certain qualities made the decision seem fitting in retrospect. He was happy to roam the neighborhood with other kids his age and get into the usual mischief while attending Saint Andrew School. But there was something a little different about him. “We knew he always had a special quality about him,” Tom says. “When he did decide it was his calling, nobody was surprised. He was easygoing and humble, with a magnetic personality.”
“I’VE ALWAYS FELT RIGHT PICKING UP AND MOVING ON. IT’S NEVER EASY, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE RELATIONSHIPS. BUT I’VE BEEN BLESSED TO MEET NEW PEOPLE AND DEVELOP NEW RELATIONSHIPS WHILE MAINTAINING THE OLD ONES.”
The third of Frank and Pat Farrell’s six children, Joe followed older brothers Frank and Tim to Monsignor Bonner, where he was involved in campus ministry and CYO. He also spent considerable time in theater productions at Upper Darby Summer Stage.
Monica Horan Rosenthal met Farrell when they were freshmen in high school and she was attending neighboring Archbishop Prendergast. “His consistent kindness and the love in his eyes were always there,” she says.
Farrell graduated from Villanova in 1985. That spring, Father Joe Mostardi, then the Augustinians’ local director of vocations, called the Farrell house looking for the boys’ uncle, Father Tom. Joe answered. Mostardi asked how the job search was going. The response was telling. “My heart’s not in it,” Farrell told him.
Sensing an opening, Mostardi suggested they have lunch. That’s when he proposed another possibility. “Perhaps you should consider a vocation for the priesthood or the religious life,” he said.
By September, Farrell was a prenovitiate at Villanova, entering a period designed so “the friars can get to know you and you can get to know them.” In August 1986, he moved to Racine, Wisconsin, to begin his novitiate training. This time, relocation felt right.
“It continued to feel like it was the right path,” Farrell says. “I wasn’t finding big challenges or obstacles in my way.”
That feeling only strengthened over the next several years after Farrell chose the Augustinians. Hagan describes the order as a family, and Farrell was drawn to its emphasis on community—the idea that its members worked together and supported one another. In 1991, he was ordained at Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Bryn Mawr.
Over the next three decades, Farrell served in a variety of roles, including positions at Villanova—and his responsibilities eventually took him well beyond the Main Line. He first met Robert Prevost—aka Pope Leo XIV—in 1987. Their friendship has endured through decades of service in the Augustinian Order. Now both men are in positions of extraordinary responsibility in Rome. “It’s still very much of a brotherly relationship,” Farrell says.
Horan Rosenthal got a glimpse of that relationship after undergoing hip-replacement surgery in 2025. Farrell texted his old friend with good wishes. Attached was a photo of Farrell with Pope Leo. “My friend and I are praying for you,” the message read.
For all the international responsibilities and his close ties to his Augustinian family, Farrell remains a Delaware County guy. He still loves spending time in Ocean City, New Jersey. And when his travels lead him home, the Farrell clan makes the most of his visits.
“He’s brought us closer together,” Tom says. “We won’t see each other as siblings for a while. But when he comes to town, everybody gathers.”
Then the guy who once refused to relocate heads back to Rome.
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