Diocesan News

Priest With Queens Roots Is Ordained in Rockville Centre

Father Song. (Photo Gregory A. Shemitz)

Father Leo Song was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Saturday, June 23, by Bishop John O. Barres at St. Agnes Cathedral, Rockville Centre.

He celebrated his First Mass of thanksgiving on Sunday, June 24, at Holy Name of Jesus Church, Woodbury, L.I.

Father Song was assigned to St. Rose of Lima parish, Massapequa, where he will serve as an associate pastor. He is the second native-born Korean to be ordained for the Long Island diocese.

Father Song, 27, was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved with his parents and younger sister to the U.S. when he was six years old. The family settled in Whitestone and then moved to Bayside where they are parishioners at St. Robert Bellarmine Church.

He celebrated his First Mass of thanksgiving on Sunday, June 24, at Holy Name of Jesus Church, Woodbury, L.I.

Father Song graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with an economics degree in 2004.  He worked for a logistics company in Jamaica, Queens, and then in the operations end in the fashion industry in Manhattan.

After several years working in business, he returned to school at the CUNY Graduate Center and earned his doctorate with honors in physical therapy in 2011 and began working at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center.

He entered seminary in 2012. For two years, he studied philosophy at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and then was sent to study in Rome, where he earned his bachelor of sacred theology degree from the Pontifical University.

This spring, he finished first-year studies toward a licentiate of sacred theology degree at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.