Inspired by his mother and a parish priest at Our Lady of the Gardens Church on Chicago’s far south side, his interest in a life of service began early. “Father Chester often spoke of the encouragement he received from Father [Edward] Delaney to become a priest ‘because your people need you,’” said his identical twin brother Father Charles Smith SVD. “Father Delaney’s comments were the foundation of his ministry, encouraging Black men and women to be leaders in their communities, parishes, and churches.”
Born five minutes after his brother in 1959, Chester was the second of Charles A. and Mae Ruth (nee Forte) Smith’s four children. As teenagers, the brothers attended Divine Word Seminary High School in East Troy, Wis., and then Divine Word College in Epworth, Iowa, where Chester earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
In 1982, the Smith twins professed religious vows in the Society of the Divine Word at Bay St. Louis, Miss., site of the first Catholic seminary for African-American students. And in 1988, they made history when they were ordained by Most Rev. J. Terry Steib SVD and became the first pair of African-American twins to become priests in the United States.
Father Chester Smith once said that he finally and fully committed to the idea of becoming a priest when he was a seminarian, working in the Watts section of Los Angeles.