For years, Father Nicholas Weiss watched friends lie prostrate before the altar during the Litany of the Saints and thought, “I know that guy. He’s my good friend, and he’s being ordained a priest.”
Priests
After a leap of faith led him to the seminary and — almost a decade of formation later — to his ordination as a priest of the Diocese of Dallas on May 23, Father Jeremy Maness has some well-earned wisdom for anyone discerning a vocation: Don’t let uncertainty about the destination delay the journey.
In a retreat hall in Porto San Giorgio, Italy, baskets sat at the front of the room — one filled with the names of Catholic dioceses around the world, the other with the names of aspiring seminarians willing to go wherever the Church sent them.
Bishop Edward J. Burns ordained three men to the priesthood May 23 at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church, urging them to embrace lives of sacrificial service, spiritual fatherhood, and fidelity to Christ as they begin ministry in the Diocese of Dallas.
Bishop John P. Dolan of Phoenix still remembers when clergy and, in particular, a religious sister walked with him after his brother died by suicide.
This spring, the U.S. will see more than 400 men ordained to the priesthood, both diocesan and religious.
Ordinations of priests and deacons have been halted in four Nicaraguan dioceses, aggravating a shortage of priests as the Sandinista regime continues its suffocation of the Catholic Church.
The priests who staff nunciatures and other Vatican diplomatic missions around the world must be priests first and diplomats second, Pope Leo XIV told them.
The Diocese of Auchi, Nigeria, announced the death of a young seminarian who, along with two fellow seminarians, was kidnapped by bandits in July.
While the number of Catholic priests and religious continues to decline, the number of lay missionaries, catechists, and permanent deacons continues to increase, according to the news agency Fides.