Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will ordain 10 men to the priesthood to serve the Church in Brooklyn and Queens.
The ordination rites will take place at St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral, Prospect Heights, on Saturday, June 4, at 11 a.m.
Most men were ordained as transitional deacons last fall and will receive their parish assignments from the bishop following the ordination Mass.
The men are an average age of 34 years old. The oldest is 48 and the youngest will turn 26 this year, the earliest someone can be ordained without special permission.
Three of them were born in Brooklyn. Seven were born outside the United States – in Haiti, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Nigeria – reflecting the ethnic make-up of the Diocese of Immigrants.
In this section are brief biographies of the ordinands with details of their roads to the priesthood and plans for their First Masses of thanksgiving. The pieces were written by Tablet reporters Marie Elena Giossi and Maria-Pia Negro Chin.
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In the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan ordained 14 men on Saturday, May 28, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Manhattan.
Among them is Queens native Father Jean Pierre A. Seon, who will celebrate a First Mass of thanksgiving at Immaculate Conception Church, Astoria, on Sunday, June 5, at 10:30 a.m.
The oldest ordinand for New York this year was 60-year-old Father Thomas Colucci, a retired NYFD captain.
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The Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, ordained 10 priests on Saturday, May 28.
The ordinations were held at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Newark, with Archbishop John J. Myers as the ordaining prelate.
Although some of the new priests come from as far away as Colombia, Portugal, Poland, South Korea, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, two have strong New Jersey roots – Newark/Belleville and Livingston/ Hillside, and one hails from New York State.
Six of the members of the Class of 2016 had business experience prior to entering the seminary. One worked as an opera singer in his native Nicaragua; another was an attorney; one managed a gas station; another had careers as a retail manager and a restaurateur; one worked in the public relations and youth ministry fields; another was a banker.
Many have been involved in both missionary work around the world and in youth and young adult ministry.
Nationwide, the 2016 class of men ordained to the priesthood report that they were, on average, about 17 when they first considered a vocation to the priesthood and encouraged to consider a vocation by an average of four people. Seven in 10 (70 percent) say they were encouraged by a parish priest, as well as friends (48 percent), parishioners (46 percent) and mothers (42 percent).
On average, they lived in the diocese or eparchy for which they will be ordained for 15 years before entering seminary. Religious ordinands knew the members of their religious institute an average of five years before entering.
The total number of potential ordinands for the class of 2016, 548, is slightly down from 595 in 2015 and up from 477 in 2014.
The average age for the Class of 2016 is 35.
Two-thirds (66 percent) report their primary race or ethnicity as Caucasian/European American/white.
