Monthly Newspaper • DIOCESE OF BRIDGEPORT

STRATFORD—Scouts from Our Lady of Peace in Stratford recently held a fill-the-boat food drive to help establish a food pantry for local charities.

Scouts BSA Troop 20 and Sea Scout Ship 101, both chartered to Our Lady of Peace, collected more than 75 pounds of food and more than $600 in this inaugural event. “I’m proud of our Scouts for taking time from a holiday weekend to help the local community and give back to the church,” Hugh Welch, scoutmaster of Troop 20 proudly stated. “The scouts were able to demonstrate scout spirit and the part of the Scout Oath that challenges them to “…do my best to God and my country… to help other people at all times…”

According to Father Nicholas Pavia, pastor of Our Lady of Peace and an Eagle Scout, “It fills my heart with joy to see young people working in our community to help others in need.”

Dick Williams, skipper of Ship 101 added, “Sea Scouting is a vibrant BSA arm that has taught water safety and adventure since 1912, adding young women in 1971. Working this food drive has been a pleasure for the scouts and a boon to Stratford!”

Pictured are (front row)- Kelsey W, Father Nicholas Pavia, Marissa D, Katherine K. and Dick Williams, Skipper Ship 101  (back row)- Charlie W. and Michalela P.

(If you are interested in becoming a Scout please visit www.beascout.scouting.org. Young women age 12-18 interested in joining Scouts BSA Troop 20 may contact Scoutmaster Hugh Welch at hughowlscout@gmail.com and youth age 14-21 who are interested in joining Sea Scout Ship 101 may contact Skipper Dick Williams at rvrznd@gmail.com.)

NEW MILFORD—“Disregarding the Shame, Reaching Out for the Joy,” a healing retreat for victims of abuse, will be held over two weekends, on August 3 and August 10 from 9:30 to 3:30 at the Oratory of the Little Way at 8 Oratory Lane in New Milford, Conn.

The six-session retreat has touched hundreds of victims of not only sex abuse, but also physical and emotional abuse, and is being used in Latin America and other parts of the United States.

The retreat is based on a simple creed that “Jesus Christ is not only able to heal the wounds and scars of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, but longs to, right here, right now.”

The retreat was developed by Father Lawrence Carew, who has a healing ministry in the prison system, and Methodist minister Dr. Gail Paul, former chaplain at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution.

“The healing ministry of Jesus, which he exercised during his three years of ministry and also in the early Church with the apostles and missionaries, was always meant to be a central part of the mission of the Church,” Father Carew said.” Jesus is still healing people of what some consider “ineradicable wounds,” he said.

Father Carew, a native of Boston who grew up in Stamford, was ordained in 1966. He then went on to serve as parochial vicar at St. Peter Church in Danbury, St. Teresa’s in Trumbull, St. Joseph’s in Danbury and Christ the King in Trumbull, where he served as pastor until his retirement in December 2016.

He has been active in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal since 1971 and was named spiritual adviser to the renewal in 1997. He has also served in several leadership positions in the national Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

He continues to be involved in voluntary prison ministry and spiritual renewal outreach, including serving as spiritual adviser to the diocesan Magnificat ministry and offering masses of healing and hope as well as inner healing workshops.

He is the author of the book “Healer of Hearts, Healer of Minds,” and several healing workshops, including “Six Simple Steps Into Healing Prayer” and “Healing the Shepherds” for people in full-time ministry.

“When I meet with victims of abuse, I will talk with them about how healing prayer is a part of Christ’s help and I will pray with them, and they almost always have a sense that the Lord is there, blessing them, and that something good is happening inside of them,” he said.

The retreat, which is on DVD, is based on six talks, followed by six healing prayer exercises, a period of music and opportunities for individual prayer. For more information about the retreat, which will begin on August 3 and conclude on August 10, call 860.354.8294.

BRIDGEPORT — Bishop Frank J. Caggiano ordained three men as priests for the Diocese of Bridgeport on Saturday, calling upon them to “preach the fullness of truth whether the world likes it or not.”

“I would love to tell you that the days ahead in the Church will be easy ones, but they are not going to be,” the bishop told the candidates at their Ordination Mass in a packed Saint Augustine Cathedral. “You have had the courage to persevere in a world where a thousand voices would have told you not to….The Church needs to be purified and renewed and we with Christ as our Captain and Savior will do that together, and you will do that with the gifts God will give you today. Thank you for saying yes because the Church needs you now more than ever.”

The bishop praised Peter Adamski, Christopher Ford and David Roman as men of true service, generosity and sacrifice, and urged them “to lead God’s people by rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty in the work of life and to walk side by side with those you will care for and lead to Christ.”

The three men were given a sustained standing ovation by the congregation as they were brought before the bishop and presented as candidates for ordination. The elect prostrated themselves while the Litany of Saints was sung. Then, one by one, they knelt before the bishop who laid his hands on their heads, followed by dozens of priests who also imposed their hands, invoking the Holy Spirit to descend upon them.

After the prayer of ordination, the newly ordained men were vested with a stole and chasuble. The Bishop anointed the hands of each of them, as a preparation for the sacred duties they would perform. Then, Bishop Caggiano handed each one a chalice and paten, which signified the central importance of celebrating the Eucharist.

During his homily, Bishop Caggiano said, “The Lord is going to ask you to teach the word of salvation. We live in a world where the truth is what we would like it to be. Where half-truths are enough, a world that wants to be made in our image, not in God’s image. That may be good for the world — it is not good for us.”

He encouraged them “to go into the pulpit and preach the fullness of truth in season and out of season, whether the world likes it or not, to allow the world to glimpse the plan God has foreseen for a world that would be truly fulfilled, joyful and at peace in Jesus Christ.”

Bishop Caggiano said he was deeply grateful for their having said yes to “this great call” and he thanked the many people in their lives, from parents and teachers, to parishioners, priests and instructors, for bringing them to this day.

He told them Christ had given them an awesome gift to allow them to be channels of his sanctifying grace in the sacraments, “to bring little ones and adults into the font of the waters, where they die and rise with Christ, to be able to speak the words that will break the bonds of sin in the name of Jesus, to bring liberation and peace and set the devil on his heels, to comfort those who are dying in the moments when they need to hear God’s love … and to come to this altar and through those unworthy hands be able take ordinary bread and wine and allow it in God’s grace to become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the only Savior the world will ever know.”

He also urged them to embrace Our Lady in their priestly life because “She will never fail you. She will be your protector, your guardian, your advocate.”

At the end of the Mass, hundreds of faithful lined up at the Cathedral to receive blessings from the newly ordained men, who were overwhelmed with emotion.

Father Christopher Ford, who was assigned to St. Gregory the Great Church in Danbury, said, “It is indescribable. It is absolutely indescribable. The joy I feel is like nothing else I’ve ever felt in my life. God is good.”

Father Peter Adamski, who was assigned to St. James Church in Stratford, said, “I feel awesome I feel blessed and full of zeal right now, and I just want to get to work in the vineyard!”

Father David Roman, who will be at St. Aloysius Parish in New Canaan, said, “I feel great! I feel great!”

All three had been ordained as transitional deacons last May.

Father Peter Joseph Adamski, 65, is one of four sons of the late Peter and Melda Adamski. He grew up in Jersey City, N.J., and had Holy Spirit Church in Stamford as his home parish. He and his wife Kathy, who died in 2014, were married more than 40 years, and they had a son, John.

Father Adamski received a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in 1976 and earned an MBA from Rutgers along with his C.P.A. license. He has held executive positions at Johnson & Johnson Co. and Bausch & Lomb and was the CEO of a foam manufacturing company in New Jersey. He completed his seminary studies at Pope St. John XXIII Seminary in Weston, Mass.

Father Christopher Joseph Ford, 29, was born in Bridgeport. The only boy in a family with three sisters, he grew up in Naugatuck and attended St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School and Naugatuck High School. His parents, Terence and Teresa Ford, live in Naugatuck and are members of St. Francis of Assisi Church.

Father Ford graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven in 2011 and then went to work for Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, while obtaining a master’s degree in education from Kent State University in Ohio. He entered St. John Fisher Seminary in 2015 and earned his M.Div./S.T.B. degree from St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y.

Father David Roman, Jr., 34, is the oldest of three sons of David and Yvonne Roman. A native of Waterbury, he and his family attended St. Patrick Parish. He graduated from Western Connecticut State University in Danbury with a bachelor’s degree in history and received a master’s in education from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

He taught at St. Joseph School in Danbury and served as youth minister at St. Joseph Parish and Notre Dame Parish of Easton before entering St. John Fisher Seminary. He received his M.Div./S.T.B. degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Photos by Amy Mortensen

BRIDGEPORT—The Leadership Institute has added a few more face-to-face meetings in English and Spanish for those ministers who could not attend the previous sessions.

The Remaining Face-to-Face Sessions are as follows:

• Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 5:30 PM, St. Roch’s Church, Greenwich (Espanol/ Spanish)
• Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 7:30 PM, St. Mary Parish, Greenwich
• Wednesday, 29 May 2019, 7:30 PM, St. Patrick Church, Redding
• Thursday, 6 June 2019, 5:00 PM, Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist, Stamford
• Thursday, 6 June 2019, 7:00 PM, St. Joseph, Shelton (Espanol/ Spanish)
• No sessions will be scheduled after June 10, 2019.

Luncheon for Ministry Coordinators

There will also be a luncheon for ministry coordinators, priests and parish staff that have assisted in the process of the promulgation of the new liturgical norms. Please join us at noon on Friday, June 21, 2019 at the Catholic Center (238 Jewett Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06606) for lunch so Bishop Caggiano can thank you personally for all you have done to bring your liturgical ministers into compliance. Please rsvp to institute@diobpt.org before June 18, 2019. All mandates will be distributed at this time.

Formation for the Assembly

To help those not in formation learn more about the norms and how we can all work to become more prepared to celebrate Mass in our parishes, the following has been scheduled:

• In the May issue of the Fairfield County Catholic, you will have seen a two-page spread of the most frequently asked questions that have been asked during the face-to-face sessions.
• In the June issue of the Fairfield County Catholic, you will see a two-page spread on suggestions for preparing for Mass.
• During the weekend Masses for Corpus Christi (June 23, 2019), all priests and deacons are asked to preach on the appropriate way to receive Holy Communion, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and how we all can reverently prepare ourselves to receive the Lord in the Eucharist.

(For more information contact Patrick Donovan at: 203.416.1657 or via email at: pdonovan@diobpt.org.)

BRIDGEPORT—The Leadership Institute of the Diocese of Bridgeport is pleased to continue the Family Bible Challenge. During the first season of the Family Bible Challenge, more than 1,400 families participated in the Sunday reflections and the Wednesday quizzes. Why not make this a part of your family tradition as you kick off the summer? We are still giving away Bibles to new participants (in English and Spanish), so be sure to let us know if you would like one when you sign up.

Season Two begins Pentecost Sunday, June 9, 2019, and runs through July 14, 2019.

Sunday

Each Sunday, families will receive an email identifying a new passage that they are asked to read together as a family, reflect upon, and discuss. We will provide the passage and the questions. You just have to make the time.

Wednesday

Each Wednesday, families will receive trivia questions that can be answered online.

These questions will be about the week’s passage as well as basic Catholic trivia. New questions appear each week.

What’s the challenge?

The “challenge” is to engage your family with Sacred Scripture. There is no contest. There are no rules. There is, however, the great benefit of falling in love with Jesus through the power of the Good News found in the Bible you will receive.

Will your family accept the Bishop’s challenge?

FAMILY TRIVIA NIGHTS

Encounter Scripture· Encounter Christ

During Lent 2019, more than 1,400 families accepted Bishop Caggiano’s Family Bible Challenge. They received a weekly reflection and quiz. Season two of the FBC begins on Pentecost Sunday. As part of season two, The Leadership Institute and a few parishes are hosting Family Trivia Nights in June. There is no cost to participate. Gather your family and friends and register online at formationreimagined.org. Teams of 10 will compete in 10 rounds of 10 questions to see who knows more about church history, the Bible, the popes, and even the Diocese of Bridgeport. Join us for a fun-filled evening to kick off summer by learning more about your faith.

Fri., June 14; 7 pm Sacred Heart in Danbury

Sat., June l 5; 7 pm The Catholic Center in Bridgeport

Wed., June 19; 7 pm Holy Spirit in Stamford

(To sign up, please visit: www.familybiblechallenge.org.)

BRIDGEPORT—On Saturday, June 1, Bishop Frank J. Caggiano will ordain three men as priests for the Diocese of Bridgeport. The Ordination Mass will be celebrated at 11 am in St. Augustine Cathedral. These three men were ordained as transitional deacons last year, May 19, 2018.

Peter Adamski
Peter Joseph Adamski, 65, one of four sons of the late Peter and Melda Adamski, grew up in Jersey City, N.J., and now considers Holy Spirit in Stamford as his home parish. He and wife, Kathy, were married over 40 years before she died in 2014. They have one son, John, who will be a lector at the Ordination Mass. His brother, Gary, will bring up the gifts.

Peter holds his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he graduated in 1976, and earned an MBA from Rutgers the following year along with his C.P.A. license. He has been a CFO with Johnson & Johnson Co., worked for Bausch & Lomb eye health products in Rochester, N.Y., and was the CEO of a successful foam manufacturing company in New Jersey. Peter is also a proud father and marathon runner of 40 years. He had thoughts of becoming a priest as a teenager, and discussed the possibility of a priestly vocation with Kathy shortly before she passed.

He completed his seminary studies at Pope St. John XXIII Seminary in Weston, Mass.

Father Adamski will celebrate his first Mass at Holy Spirit on Sunday, June 2, at 11:30 am. Msgr. Kevin Royal, Holy Spirit’s pastor, will be the homilist and concelebrant, along with Very Rev. Brian Kiely, rector/president of Pope St. John XXIII Seminary and Msgr. Peter Cullen, retired. Also joining in the celebration of Holy Mass will be Rev. Robert Hoffman, Diocese of St. Augustine, Rev. Brian Beal, Diocese of Columbus and Rev. Corey Bassett-Tirrell, Archdiocese of Boston, all of whom were from the Class of 2019 at Pope St. John XXIII Seminary.

“My love for the Lord has grown so very deeply during these past four years of formation,” said Deacon Adamski, “I have learned to surrender myself completely to doing His will and how to discern His will from the actions of the Evil One. I thank Jesus every day for calling me by name to His ministerial priesthood and ask to be filled with the graces necessary to minister to the members of His Holy Church in the years ahead.”

Christopher Ford
Christopher Joseph Ford, 29, was born in Bridgeport on October 2, 1989. The only boy in a family with three sisters, he grew up in Naugatuck, attending St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School and Naugatuck High School. His parents, Terence and Teresa Ford, live in Naugatuck and are members of St. Francis, and will be lector and gift bearer at the Ordination Mass, respectively.

He graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven in 2011. While attending Southern, he worked for candidates for the U.S. Senate and Conn. governorship. Upon graduation, he worked for Westminster College in New Wilmington, Penn., while obtaining a master’s degree in education from Kent State University in Ohio.

He entered St. John Fisher Seminary in 2015. Deacon Ford has earned his M.Div./S.T.B. degree from St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y.

Father Ford will celebrate his first Mass at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Naugatuck on Sunday, June 2 at 3 pm. Rev. Keith Chylinski of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Penn. will be the homilist and concelebrant, along with Rev. Michael Dunn, pastor of St. Gregory the Great in Danbury, Rev. John Kuzhikottayil, SDB, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Naugatuck, Rev. Norman Guilbert, pastor of Holy Family in Fairfield and Rev. Christopher M. Ford, pastor of Assumption Parish in Woodbridge.

“As soon as Mary said ‘yes’ to the angel Gabriel and received the gift of Christ, she immediately went out and sought her cousin Elizabeth,” said Deacon Ford, “In a way, that is the whole business of the priesthood,” he continued, “to receive this gift of a heart conformed to Christ and then spend a lifetime bringing His loving and merciful presence to a world so in need of it. St. John Vianney once called the priesthood ‘the love of the heart of Christ’ and the peace and the joy I feel at being called, unworthy as I am, to offer myself as an instrument of sacrificial love, is indescribable.”

David Roman
David Roman, Jr., 34, the first of three sons of David and Yvonne Roman, was born in Waterbury on April 18, 1985. He grew up in that city, he and his family attended St. Patrick Parish. Mrs. Yvonne Roman will bring up the gifts at the Ordination Mass.

He graduated from Western Connecticut State University in Danbury with a bachelor’s in history in 2008 and earned a master’s degree in education from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

He taught at St. Joseph School in Danbury, and served as youth minister at St. Joseph Parish and Notre Dame of Easton Parish prior to entering St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford. He received his M.Div./S.T.B. degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Father Roman will celebrate his first Mass at St. Joseph in Danbury on Sunday, June 2 at 12 noon. Father Robert Kinnally will be homilist and concelebrant, along with Father Samuel Scott, pastor of St. Joseph in Danbury, Father David Franklin, associate pastor of St. Joseph in Danbury, Father Ray Sherba, priest in residence at St. Joseph in Danbury and Father Harry Prieto, associate pastor at St. Edward Parish.

“The everyday encounters of ‘Cor ad cor loquitur,’ of allowing the hearts of my brothers and sisters in Christ to speak to mine and vice versa has been a cornerstone in my life,” Deacon Roman shared. “Because it was there that I encountered the love of God,” he continued, “It was in the parishes that I walked alongside the young and the old in pursuit of the Gospel truth. And it was in prayer that God showed me the beautiful vision of where the center of priestly life is located: in the Most Sacred Heart of His Son Jesus. That all-encompassing, concrete love of God has been the catalyst and safeguard of my vocation. And undoubtedly my priesthood will forever bear the marks of those sacred moments.”

FAIRFIELD—Sacred Heart University announced today that it will reopen the long-shuttered Community Theater in downtown Fairfield as the new Sacred Heart University Community Theater.

The University has signed a 10-year lease with Kleban Properties to create a premier arts and education site at the corner of Post and Unquowa Roads. Open to the entire Fairfield community, including all University students, the refurbished venue will provide a range of offerings, including high-profile lectures, author talks, unique films, concerts and performances. It will showcase the work of the University’s dance, orchestra, band, choir, theater arts, film students and more.

Preliminary plans call for a full-scale renovation of the former movie theater, which opened in 1920 and closed in 2011. The landmark theater will have at least 400 seats. Work should be completed in 2020, just in time for the theater’s 100th anniversary.

Kleban will renovate the theater to Sacred Heart’s specifications. “Once the renovations are complete, we will install the state-of-the-art equipment and accouterments that have come to define Sacred Heart’s new and renovated spaces,” said Mike Kinney, senior vice president for finance at Sacred Heart.

“Kleban Properties will be looking to the town of Fairfield for assistance in various forms to ensure that this exciting opportunity becomes reality,” said Ken Kleban, president of Kleban Properties.

The theater will speak to the University’s core mission, providing a state-of-the-art space for academic exploration and experiential learning in the arts and humanities. Students will also be involved in the management of the site, gaining vital experience in operating an arts venue.

The venue will also contribute new activity into the heart of downtown Fairfield. “I am thrilled that the Community Theater, which has long been an iconic landmark in our town filled with special memories for so many of us, will finally be reopened,” said Fairfield First Selectman Mike Tetreau. “Thank you to Kleban Properties and Sacred Heart University for saving this historic gem that will add to the vibrancy of our downtown and help Fairfield’s arts and cultural scene continue to flourish.”

“This project is another example of how a University gives back to the community where it resides,” said SHU President John J. Petillo. “We plan to turn this into a contemporary venue for the University and the community while maintaining much of the classical features that have been part of downtown Fairfield for 100 years. That we can breathe new life into this building after years of dormancy is truly exciting.”

Deacon Galley, 32, was wearing his clericals after having just been ordained to the transitional diaconate for the Diocese of San Bernardino, California. The cashier gave him a disgusted look of disapproval and did not say one word to him during the transaction.

“After placing my order, I walked away from the counter and thought, ‘Golly, Gino, what did you sign up for?’” said Deacon Galley, who remembers waiting for his coffee when a man approached him a few minutes later, shook his hand and asked for his prayers.

“One minute I was hated, and the next minute I was a sign of hope,” Deacon Galley told Our Sunday Visitor in a telephone interview a few days before he was scheduled to be ordained a priest on May 18.

“While you’re in seminary, you’re hitting the books. You’re in the rigorous seminary schedule day in and day out and you don’t have time to think about the reality that, ‘Hey, I’m going to be a priest some day,’” said Deacon Galley, who is one of 481 men this year who are being ordained to the Catholic priesthood in the United States.

Under cloud of abuse crisis

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the average man entering the priesthood this year is a 33-year-old cradle Catholic who has a college degree and had a full-time job before entering the seminary.

The new priests have another thing in common: They spent their last year of formation under the dark cloud of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

“We had to come together as brothers in formation. We prayed with each other and just took it one day at a time, keeping the focus on our own formation and pursuing what the Lord was calling us to,” said Deacon Brendan Rowley, 34, who will be ordained this year as a priest for the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island.

The clergy sex abuse crisis broke out again last summer, just before the current formation year began, with revelations that former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused minors and seminarians for several decades. Last August, a Pennsylvania grand jury reported that 301 priests in that state had sexually abused more than 1,000 minors over a 70-year period.

Those scandals prompted dozens of dioceses to release lists of credibly accused priests, motivated state attorneys general to launch their investigations and generated new calls for accountability measures for bishops. Meanwhile, seminarians found themselves preparing for a priesthood that once again was under suspicion from the wider culture and its very nature questioned by those in and outside the Church.

But several men who are being ordained priests or transitional deacons this year in the U.S. told OSV that the crisis has not discouraged them. The scandals appear to be strengthening their resolve to become the priests that God is calling them to be.

“If anything, it’s motivation,” Deacon Rowley said. “The Church needs more holy priests, priests who are dedicated to serving the Lord and laying their life down for others. We’re in a tough spot right now, but it only makes it more necessary for us to do what needs to be done.”

Healing the Church

Deacon David Roman, 34, will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 1. He told OSV that the scandals have strengthened his fellow seminarians’ desire “to be men of courageous virtue.”

“In speaking to my brother seminarians I got the sense that there was justifiable anger and dismay with the severe violation of trust and harm that so many have endured at the hands of wayward priests and bishops,” Deacon Roman said.

The new priests told OSV that their seminary rectors and faculty staff members over the past year had frank discussions with them about the scandals. Many encouraged the seminarians to ask questions or to express their thoughts and concerns about the crisis and the way forward.

“We want, like everyone else, for there to be no more hiding, no more secrets, to put it all out on the table,” said Deacon Patrick May, 31, who will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, on June 1.

“Yes, all this does hurt the Church’s public image, but the spiritual heart of the Church needs this to move forward, for all this to just come out and be purified so we can move forward and help those people who have been hurt by this,” Deacon May told OSV.

Rather than discouraging him from the priesthood, Deacon May said the crisis actually encourages him “to invest more in the priesthood through my own spiritual life, to be the best priest I can be and that the People of God deserve.”

Deacon Matthew Ikechukwu Nwafor, 38, who was ordained a transitional deacon for the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 27, told OSV that while what is happening in the Church is “painful and discouraging,” it motivates him to continue on his path to priestly ordination.

“I feel more energized to go out and what I can do to contribute to healing in the Church and to wipe the face of the suffering Jesus,” said Deacon Nwafor, a native of Nigeria who immigrated to the United States while pursuing his graduate studies.

Being ‘men of prayer’

Deacon Gino Wilcox, 44, who was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico, on May 24, said he is more determined than ever to be a good priest, and added that he prays for sex abuse survivors.

“I believed then, and I believe now, wholeheartedly, that the priesthood is my vocation,” Deacon Wilcox said. “The recent scandals have reaffirmed my resolve that was already there. In this climate, my goal is to be formed well and virtuous, so that I may serve the People of God in love and sacrifice.”

On June 1, Deacon Daniel Niezer, 26, was set to be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. He said the scandals do not discourage him, because people still need Christ in their lives and priests who can bring the Lord to his people through the sacraments.

“Knowing that Christ is still calling me to be a priest, that there is still a lot of really good and beautiful work that can be done through priests, is a big motivation for me to really step up to the plate, and really answer the call that God has given me,” Deacon Niezer said.

Deacon Galley, from the Diocese of San Bernardino, added that he learned through his seminary formation that virtually every priest who falls into serious sin has in some way lost touch with his relationship with God through prayer.

“We are done with watered-down Catholicism,” Deacon Galley said.

“We are done with watered-down spirituality. … We want to embrace the hard life. We recognize, more than ever, that we have to be men of prayer.”

Deacon George Staley, 26, who was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Louis on May 25, told OSV that his seminary faculty leaders encouraged open and candid discussions about the sex abuse scandals. They even invited a clergy sex abuse survivor to address the seminarians and share his harrowing faith journey. Deacon Staley described that moment as powerful.

“Overall, there was a sense of hope in all that we had talked about,” Deacon Staley said. “But there was also a real sense of anger as well at what had happened, and a desire that justice be done properly.”

Despite the difficulties of the recent scandals, Deacon Staley said he still feels called by Jesus Christ to know and follow Him by serving the Church as a good, holy priest: “As messy as it can all be sometimes, I’m following the one I love.”

By Brian Fraga  |  contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly.

As we begin to celebrate the “unofficial start” of the summer season this Memorial Day weekend, it may be good for each of us to pause and reflect upon the family that we form as a country. It is a family that certainly faces many challenges for which there are no easy answers. It is also a family that must rediscover and recommit itself to the values upon which our nation was built and without which we cannot find true unity and prosperity for all its members. However, it is also a family worth recommitting ourselves to strengthen and heal.

Memorial Day ask us as a national family to recognize and honor the hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens who died in service and defense of our country. Our current national holiday, originally known as Decoration Day, began soon after the end of the Civil War that was fought to end the evil and crime of slavery and to build the unity of our national family based on true equality and justice. For those who died in the line of duty, their self-sacrifice was love at its purest because it did not seek one’s own personal interests or even safety. Rather, it was a true, complete surrender of oneself for the sake of one’s neighbors and fellow citizens back home. They sacrificed their lives for countless people whose names they would never know. When we think of heroes, we remember these brave members of our national family who have died to keep us free.

As our nation struggles to face the challenges of our own age, the starting point for a true national renewal must begin in the same place as did the heroes we honor this weekend. As we struggle to protect all human life, especially unborn life, try to serve the needs of the poor or disenfranchised, seek ways to strengthen education and employment, work on improving our national harmony or work to protect our national resources, we will make no progress if we start from a vantage point of “my self-interest” or “what is best for me.” If we start with our own self-interest, we will accomplish nothing.

The men and women who died for our country did not seek self-interest when they sacrificed their lives for you and me, to protect our national family. If we wish to honor them this weekend, let us have the courage to follow their example and love each other as they loved us.

Prayer for Memorial Day (Last Monday in May)

God of power and mercy,
you destroy war and put down earthly pride.
Banish violence from our midst and wipe away our tears,
that we may all deserve to be called your sons and daughters.
Keep in your mercy those men and women
who have died in the cause of freedom
and bring them safely
into your kingdom of justice and peace.
We ask this though Jesus Christ our Lord.
R/. Amen

—from Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers

Memorial Day Mass @ St. Andrew

Photos by Amy Mortensen