Father Joseph Leiman

       Joseph Leiman is from Hampton, Virginia and is 62 years of age. Mr. Leiman has been a pastor for 37 years now. He got his priesthood education from St. Meinard Seminary College in Indiana where he majored in Biology and student teaching. Mr. Leiman is the oldest of three boys and three girls. He has been a priest at Our Lady of Nazareth Church for about 35 years.

            Mr. Leiman is a very caring priest. He helps homeless people in our area and takes mission trips to Haiti to help victims of the earthquake and most recent hurricane. “I think sharing ourselves is probably the most important thing,” he said when asked what he finds most important in helping the homeless. He showed sympathy for the people he helps when he said, “you don’t want people to feel like they’re less than or they have less than others.”

He showed how loving he was for people when he said, “People are fascinating,” and smiled after it. Mr. Leiman is extremely selfless and he displayed that when he said, “We can give charity or we can give help or we can give money or we can give books or we can do all those kinds of things, but if we’re not sharing ourselves, I think we’ve missed the boat.”  “We’ve become part of something that is bigger than ourselves,” he says when asked why he is helping all the people he helps.

Mr. Leiman is a special priest and a selfless person. His work with lesser privileged people makes him a shining light in this world and he makes the areas that he helps that much of a better place to live in. Mr. Leimans’ sympathy and selflessness make him a great Hidden Hero.