SALT LAKE CITY — Father Bartholomew Okonkwo has joined Father Gregory Ezeanya as a chaplain for Holy Cross Hospitals. Fr. Barth, as he prefers to be called, is a native of Mbosia, Nigeria. He brings more than 25 years of priestly experience to his new assignment, where he serves patients at the Holy Cross hospitals in Mountain Point, West Valley, and Jordan Valley, and others when needed.
 As a chaplain, Fr. Barth provides a spiritual anchor for patients of all backgrounds. While he is a Catholic priest, he is a “chaplain for all,” he said.
Fr. Barth comes to Utah from the Diocese of Manchester, N.H. His journey to the priesthood began in Nigeria, where he was the sixth of eight children in a deeply active Catholic family. He credits his early formation to the “Block Rosary” centers of his youth – community-based prayer groups of neighbors who gather nightly to recite the rosary and process a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary from house to house.
 “Block rosary centers are a place where we Catholics gather every evening ... to pray the rosary, to ask for the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary,” he said.
As a youth he became an altar server. While serving at Mass, he found himself inspired by the reverence of a local priest. 
“There is one of the priests in my town that we admire how he does his things while being at the altar, how reverently he celebrates Mass, how reverently he administers the sacraments, and in my mind I was saying, ‘Oh, how I wish I would have the privilege of doing this,’” he said.
With the encouragement of his family, after high school Fr. Barth entered Seat of Wisdom Seminary alongside three friends; ultimately, he and one of the others became priests. He was ordained on August 15, 1998, by Archbishop Albert Kanene Obiefuna for the Diocese of Nnewi. After serving as associate administrator at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Onitsha, he was sent by his bishop to the United States to further his education. He subsequently earned a Master of Arts in theology from St. John’s University in Queens, New York.
For the past decade, Fr. Barth served as a hospital chaplain at Dover Hospital in New Hampshire. When the opportunity arose to move to the Diocese of Salt Lake City, he welcomed the transition. 
“It’s good to have new challenges, right? ... To see the other side of the States, the other side of the [country],” he said of his move to Utah. 
Since his arrival in the Beehive State just over a month ago, Fr. Barth has been pleasantly surprised by the unseasonably warm local weather, which differed from his expectations of the Mountain West. 
“I was expecting this place to be freezing cold. ... I was expecting to see ice and snow,” he said. “I didn’t see anything. I don’t know, ... maybe by next year everything will change.”
In his spare time, Fr. Barth enjoys reading and staying connected with his family back in Nigeria. He has already found a warm welcome in his new home, noting that “the people [are] very, very, very nice.”