Ukrainian Father Iurii Stasiuk was appointed as rector of the Greek Catholic Church parish in Barcelona two weeks ago. Yet on Thursday, Feb. 24, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, the young priest was on the first plane to Poland. After landing, he walked nine miles to Ukraine.
The requirement that most priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church be celibate has theological and spiritual foundations and not only practical motivations, said speakers at an international conference on priesthood.
The number of Catholics and of Catholic men and women who devote their lives to serving them continues to grow in Africa and Asia, Vatican statistics show, but pastoral ministry is still much more readily available to Catholics in Europe.
Priests must not shut themselves into small-knit cliques but instead open themselves to the world and make God’s love reach everyone, Pope Francis said.
What does a seminarian do to prepare for priestly ministry? Pray. Check. Take theology classes. Check. Minister in parishes, hospitals, nursing homes and prisons. Check. Cut down trees and split wood. Wait, what?
There isn’t a single day, or moment, that Bishop Robert Brennan considers to be his “calling” to the priesthood. Instead, he attributes that call to a number of smaller moments from his early Catholic life in the New York area.
Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, is encouraging dioceses to use National Vocation Awareness Week, Nov. 7-13, as a time to foster vocations in their local faith communities.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio joined hundreds more for Mass celebrating the 125th year of St. Joseph’s Seminary & College at Dunwoodie, Yonkers. Auxiliary Bishop James Massa, the rector, said the hill-top campus is “merely a branch campus of the one that the Great Teacher founded back in Galilee, two millennia ago.”
A year has passed since his ordination to the priesthood and assignment as a parochial vicar for Our Lady of Angels Church, but to Father Dragan Pušić, everything still feels brand new.
Not a day goes by that identical twins Luke and Ben Daghir don’t get confused for each other. It’s probably even more confusing now since Luke and Ben, both graduate seminarians, wear black shirts with white clerical collars.
