Frank DeSiano, CSP, was born in New York City in 1945 and raised on the West Side, in the Amsterdam Housing Projects.  He attended St. Paul the Apostle Church, mother church of the Paulist Fathers, and the parish school.  He studied at St. Charles in Baltimore, St. Peter's in Baltimore and St. Paul's College in Washington, DC. 

After ordination in 1972, he served in Portland, Oregon, as a parish priest at St. Philip Neri Parish.   Three years later, he served as Vocation Director for the Paulists and then, in 1978, as Pastor of St. Paul the Apostle in New York for nine years.  Completing a year of studies at Boston University (D. Min. 1990), he undertook a new pastoral program, Parish Based Evangelization, and worked for six years in a variety of parishes in the Washington, DC area.  During this time, he formed numerous evangelization teams, developed particular strategies of evangelization for different parishes, served as a Consultor to the US Bishops Committee on Evangelization, and worked as a writer in the development of "Go and Make Disciples, A Plan and Strategy for Evangelization in the United States." (1992).

He authored or co-authored numerous books on faith (Presenting the Catholic Faith, Yes I Can Believe), on evangelization (Creating the Evangelizing Parish, The Evangelizing Catholic, Discovering My Experience of God), and on spirituality (The 7 Commandments of Discipleship). He is currently working on issues of theology and discipleship.   "Reactivating Our Catholic Faith," a book to help Catholics begin to get real about their faith, was published by Paulist Press in May, 2009.  He recently wrote "Why Not Consider Becoming a Catholic?" —available from www.pemdc.org.  Most recently he completed "Mission America: Challenges and Opportunities for Catholics Today" (available at www.paulistpress.com, and www.pemdc.org).  He also conducts parish renewals (missions) and presents at many conferences for dioceses, parishes and organizations. 

He was elected President of the Paulist Fathers (1994-2002), and then served as Pastor of the newly constructed church of Old St. Mary in the Near South Loop in Chicago (2002-2006) where he began Old St. Mary's Catholic School with Barbara Smith as the first principal.   He became First Consultor of the Paulist Fathers in 2006 and returned to New York City once again (2006-2010). 

While in Chicago, he developed the "Chicago Institute of Evangelization" with the evangelization committee of the Archdiocese of Chicago.  He presently is trying to get other dioceses to sponsor such Institutes to advance training lay people to evangelize.  He has also developed a process to help Catholics become more active in their faith, called "Awakening Faith" which is available through Paulist Ev angelization Ministries (formerly PNCEA) in Washington, DC. Another project, "Seeking Christ," is designed to help parishes welcome and involve those seeking to be Catholics at any point after the RICA has begun in a parish  appeared in the Spring of 2010.  He is involved in developing material to help attract peole to the Catholic faith and designing retreat experiences for parishes.

In January, 2009, he began  serving as President of Paulist Evangelization Ministries (formerly PNCEA) in Washington.  When not in DC, he can be found on a highway or an airport.