Weightlifting champion puts barbell to the side for a new journey — the priesthood 

Will Heller is a 21-year-old weightlifting phenom from Toledo, Ohio who now has his sights on becoming a Catholic priest. / Credit: Will Heller/USA Weightlifting/The U.P. Catholic

CNA Staff, Aug 4, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Will Heller, a 21-year-old from Toledo, Ohio, is a two-time Junior National Medalist and All American, a state record holder in Ohio and Michigan, and the 2023 University National Champion in the 102 kilogram class in weightlifting. However, the weightlifting phenom now has his sights on a more soul-intensive goal — becoming a Catholic priest.

At the age of 17, Heller was introduced to the sport of weightlifting by his high school strength and conditioning coach. He quickly excelled in the sport and earned a plethora of achievements, including being invited to represent Team USA in the 2022 and 2024 FISU America Games, the 2023 U20 Pan-American Championships, and the 2023 U20 World Championships.

Weightlifting consists of two lifts: the clean and jerk and the snatch. Heller shared in an interview with CNA that his heaviest weight for each is a 324-pound snatch and a 388-pound clean and jerk. 

A recent graduate of Northern Michigan University, Heller is a cradle Catholic and attended 13 years of Catholic school — the first seven at a diocesan school and the last six at a school run by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. 

“I can’t say I was ever much of a practicing Catholic,” he admitted. “I went to Mass on Sunday but I didn’t go to adoration ever. I didn’t really pray the rosary. I went to one of those schools that was kind of Catholic in name … So I actually fell away from the faith when I got up to Northern.”

Now, thanks to a FOCUS missionary he met while in college, he will be entering the St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota at the end of August. 

After a Christmas Eve Mass during his freshman year, a missionary whom Heller happened to know from the grade school he attended approached him. She invited him to events on campus and he began to attend.

“It’s funny because my dorm was actually looking right at the Catholic Campus Ministry Center and I was on the Catholic Campus Ministries email list and I had unsubscribed myself,” he recalled. 

He then met another FOCUS missionary who began to invest more time in Heller, and slowly he began to get more involved, leading Bible studies and other discipleship events. 

In December 2022, Heller was on his way to Mass before heading home for winter break when the pastor of the church, who had formerly been the vocations director for the diocese, told him he should consider the priesthood.

“I just kind of laughed like, ‘Ha ha Father, yeah that’s funny,’ and he goes, ‘No, I’m serious,’” Heller recounted. “In my mind I was like, ‘Just because a guy goes to daily Mass doesn’t mean he wants to be a priest.’”

So Heller “blew it off for four months,” but it remained on his mind.

As an only child wanting to get married and have children, he considered the diaconate. However, after witnessing his diocesan Eucharistic congress and ordination, he started thinking that maybe he shouldn’t ignore this idea. He began spiritual direction, talking with priests he was close to, and read “Discernment of Spirits” by Timothy Gallagher. He decided to apply to the seminary in October 2023 and was accepted in January. 

So does this mean he’ll be putting the barbell away completely? Not quite.

During his meeting with his bishop, Heller explained what his workout regimen looks like and asked if he would be able to continue to lift weights. 

“He said that he would be in support of it, but obviously if the academics were to fail or the spiritual life was not developing, then the weightlifting would have to go,” he explained. 

When Heller visited the seminary, he was surprised to find out that the rector of the propaedeutic program is actually a powerlifter himself and has a gym in the basement with all the equipment Heller will need, which he took as divine providence.

“I think God really wants me to do this,” Heller said with a laugh. 

The soon-to-be seminarian shared that he sees many parallels between fitness and faith. 

“The principle of concupiscence — we’re drawn to sin and we have to do everything in our power to combat that. I liken it to a barbell and gravity,” he explained. “When I get there on the weightlifting platform, that barbell is on the ground, and if I’m not doing anything it’s staying on the ground. But through repeated efforts over time, through much hardship, I get the bar off the ground and the bar only stays off the ground as much as I put it off the ground. So likewise for a man trying to combat sin: He has to have that continued effort, that tenacity in a sense, to keep the bar off the ground, to keep himself from sinning.”  

As for now, Heller is preparing himself to start classes in seminary on Sept. 3 and doesn’t know what comes next in weightlifting. But he said that he “doesn’t need to know what’s next. We’ll figure it out when the time comes … If God wants it to happen, it’ll happen.”