Fr. Daniel Griffith was raised in Northeastern Wisconsin, the youngest of nine children and has happily resided in the Twin Cities for the past twenty years. Fr. Griffith was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2002. In January of 2012, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt appointed Fr. Griffith to the Faculty of the University of St. Thomas School of Law where he currently serves the Law School community as a Faculty Fellow of Law and as a Fellow in the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy. In conjunction with his Law School service, Fr. Griffith serves as Pastor-Designate of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Minneapolis, where he will become pastor in July of 2012. As a lawyer, Fr. Griffith has represented clients pro bono in the areas of Immigration Law and Criminal Law. Fr. Griffith has taught as an adjunct professor at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity and as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Currently, Fr. Griffith is teaching Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy and will offer the course, Law and Theology in the fall of 2012. Fr. Griffith’s scholarly interests lie in the area of Catholic Social Thought and Law as well as the intersection of Ethics and Law and Law and Religion. Fr. Griffith also serves the Law School community by celebrating weekly Mass, as Chaplain to the Murphy Institute, as liaison to Campus Ministry, and in his availability to students for spiritual counseling. In addition to his service at the Law School, Fr. Griffith currently serves as Chaplain and Board Member of the Lawyer’s Guild of St. Thomas More.    

Fr. Griffith began his priestly service in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as Parochial Vicar of All Saints Catholic Church in Lakeville, from 2002-2005. From 2003-2005, Fr. Griffith served as Chaplain to the Men’s Apostolate of the Archdiocese. From 2005-2011, Fr. Griffith served as Pastor of the Church of St. Peter in North St. Paul. During his pastorate, Fr. Griffith successfully merged two parish communities, oversaw the successful planning, design, and building of a $13,000,000 worship space and related spaces, and successfully led two parish capital campaigns which raised a total of 10.5 million dollars. The new worship space at St. Peter won a 2009 AIA award for excellence in design. In July of 2011, Fr. Griffith was appointed Interim Pastor of the Church of St. Edward in Bloomington. During his interim pastorate, Fr. Griffith helped establish the Matthew 25 Fund at St. Edward which seeks to help serve the homeless and poor in Bloomington and the South Metro area. Fr. Griffith served for six years as a member of the Presbyteral Council of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and currently serves on the College of Consultors of the Archdiocese and as a member of the Archdiocesan Catholic Schools Advisory Council.