Class of 2016

SVDP Alumni
Ordination Class

About Joseph House

• Founded 2018, Tallahassee, Florida
• Diocese of Pensacola–Tallahassee
• Trauma-informed reentry housing
• Partner: Equal Justice Initiative
• Partner: Legal Defense Fund
• josephhouseus.org
  

Founder & Executive Director | Joseph House, Tallahassee, FL

Fr. Dustin Feddon is a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Pensacola–Tallahassee and a graduate of St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary (Class of 2016). He is the Founder and Executive Director of Joseph House, a reentry home and community for men released from Florida’s prisons, located in Tallahassee.



Fr. Feddon’s ministry among the incarcerated began when he was a seminarian on his pastoral year internship. It was in 2013 that he began visiting men in Florida state prisons — many in solitary confinement. He witnessed both their profound suffering and their irreducible human dignity. What he encountered there did not move him to pity alone, but to action. In 2018, that conviction became a home.

“We are making a radical statement: that at the moment they are released from prison, they have a place and a people to whom they belong.”

— Fr. Dustin Feddon

Joseph House provides safe, trauma-informed housing rooted in the conviction that true rehabilitation begins not with programs alone, but with belonging. The home offers residents not merely shelter, but a space of quiet, nature, and genuine community — where men are reminded they are seen, valued, and not alone.

The United States holds nearly two million people behind bars, and Florida incarcerates its population at a rate higher than any independent democracy on earth. Joseph House exists because 95 percent of those released will return to our communities — and without support, two-thirds will return to prison within three years. Fr. Feddon’s ministry is breaking that cycle, one resident at a time.

Joseph House has partnered with national organizations including the Equal Justice Initiative and the Legal Defense Fund to advance greater justice and mercy for those affected by incarceration. Fr. Feddon is also the author of More Than Half Way Home: A Story of Accompaniment in the Shadows of Incarceration, praised by Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, as “a testament to the power of grace and kindness to heal.”

In recognizing Fr. Feddon with the St. Vincent de Paul Award, the Seminary honors a priest who has made proximity to the poor and forgotten not merely a pastoral assignment, but a vocation — one rooted in his formation at SVDP and expressed in the fullness of priestly charity.

Since 2018

Lecturer in Medical Ethics

St. Vincent de Paul Seminary

Selected Credentials & Service

• M.D., University of Bologna, 1968
• Board Certified, OB/GYN
• Fellow, American College of Surgeons
• Fellow, American College of OB/GYN
• Fellow, International College of Surgeons
• Lecturer, SVDP Medical Ethics (2018–)
• CMO, Delray Medical Center (retired)
• Associate Dean, FAU Schmidt COM
• Past President, Catholic Physicians Guild
• EWTN Medical Ethics Consultant
• Sainthood Investigator: St. Titus Brandsma
• Sainthood Investigator: Servant of God Capodanno
  

Clinical Professor of OB/GYN | FAU Schmidt College of Medicine

Dr. Anthony N. Dardano is a physician whose life has been marked by a rare integration: a distinguished career in obstetrics and gynecology, a deep Catholic faith, and an unwavering commitment to the defense of life at every stage. He has served as a volunteer lecturer in medical ethics at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary since 2018 and in human sexuality and gender identity since 2022.

Born and formed in the Catholic intellectual tradition — earning his B.S. from Niagara University with a minor in theology and philosophy before completing his medical doctorate at the University of Bologna, Italy, Magna Cum Laude — Dr. Dardano has brought that integrated formation to bear on decades of clinical and academic work.

He served as Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Utica, New York, for more than thirty years and delivered some five thousand babies during his four decades in active clinical practice. He later served as Chief Medical Officer at Delray Medical Center for sixteen years and as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Clinical Professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, where he continues to teach.

“He is an exemplar of a committed Catholic who has sought to have his faith inform his work throughout his career, standing firm in the face of colleagues who wanted to weaken ethical limitations in many cases.”



— Fr. Timothy Cusick, Academic Dean & Vice Rector, SVDP