BRIDGEPORT—Bishop James Massa, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn and rector of St. Joseph Seminary, (Dunwoodie) New York will ordain Deacon Brendan Blawie to the priesthood on Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 11 am at St. Augustine’s Cathedral.
Bishop Massa has graciously agreed to fill in for Bishop Frank J. Caggiano who tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week. While the Bishop is asymptomatic, he will remain in quarantine consistent with CDC recommendations.
Blawie, a native of Newtown who graduated from Marine Officer’s Candidate School in Quantico, VA in the summer of 2012, was ordained as a transitional deacon on June 20, 2020 alongside Guy Dormévil.
For transitional deacons, the following year included pastoral, liturgical and an educational preparation period for the priesthood.
Attendance at the ordination will be limited to immediate family members and other invited guests in order to conform to the public health recommendations for returning to indoor Mass during the pandemic.
Brendan Blawie was born and raised in Newtown, CT, and received all of his Sacraments at St. Rose of Lima Parish. He is the middle of three children, with an older brother, Jack, and a younger sister, Marian. His parents, Karen and John Blawie, raised him in the faith, although he admits to not thinking much about being a priest as a young boy.
Brendan loves sports, having played football and basketball through high school and has earned the rank of Eagle Scout. “It was in high school that I began to actually learn about and love our faith,” he shares.
Brendan enrolled in the Corps of Cadets at Virginia Tech in the Marine Corps ROTC program, before transferring to Franciscan University of Steubenville where he earned his degree in accounting. While there, he still pursued a commission with the Marine Corps, graduating from Officer’s Candidate School in Quantico, Va. the summer of 2012. This fulfilled a dream he had from his childhood of being a Marine Officer, but in the end, it was clear to him that it may have been his plan, but not the Lord’s.
Instead of commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Brendan entered seminary for the Diocese of Bridgeport. He completed my two years of pre-theological studies at St. John Fisher seminary, before being sent to the Pontifical North American College in Rome where he spent three years. In 2019, he received his theology degree, magna cum laude, from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was on pastoral assignment at St. Thomas More parish in Darien.
In the fall, he returned to the Pontifical North American College in Rome to continue his formation and begin his Licentiate of Sacred Theology in Dogmatics at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.
“I am filled with gratitude and joy to have arrived at this point in my life, to lay down all that I am, to be configured fully to Christ as His priest,” says Blawie. “I heard the call to ‘leave my net and follow Him’ (Matthew 4:20), and this ordination is the fulfillment of years of discernment, prayer, and study. But it is only the beginning of what I pray will be a fruitful lifetime of service in Christ’s vineyard. Please pray for me as I prepare to approach the altar of our Lord!”
Because of COVID-19 restrictions, attendance is limited to invitation only.
2021 Priest Ordination Program
(click the arrows to move to the next page or download the program here)
