Rev. Eric Nielsen

Fr. Eric Nielsen grew up the oldest of 7 children in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. As a child his mother ran a small and efficient home while his father painted houses. He graduated from Lourdes High School in 1979 and in 1984 graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering.  Among other jobs he worked in Washington D.C. for the Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Wisconsin Department of Transportation, and for a year on a dairy farm in Germany's Black Forest. Eventually he settled on the priesthood and was ordained for the Diocese of Madison in 1995. After serving in a number of rural parishes across the Diocese he became the pastor of the Catholic Student Center at the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus in 2006. In the summer of 2023 he was transferred, and now serves as the Administrator of the four Janesville Catholic parishes; St. Patrick's, Nativity of Mary, St. William's, and St. John Vianney's.