18 US seminarians ordained deacons in St. Peter’s Basilica

[Michie]

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Near the tomb of St. Peter, 18 seminarians from across the United States promised to dedicate their lives to Christ and were ordained to the diaconate.

Yet for the church’s next generation of ordained ministers, “it is not enough to be good churchmen, you must be disciples,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City told the new deacons in his homily during the ordination Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“If any of you seminarians were so naive to believe that priesthood would bring you a privileged existence, we’re about 60 years too late,” he said in his homily during the Mass Sept. 28. “That age of Christendom, that age where Christianity and society were so closely aligned as to sometimes be indistinguishable has passed.”

Seminarians from 16 dioceses​

Archbishop Coakley, who was the main celebrant at the ordination Mass, told the new deacons that in a divided church and in a society “hostile” to Christianity, Christians and their leaders must “prepare themselves not for privilege but for marginalization, for persecution and even martyrdom.”

Continued below.

18 US seminarians ordained deacons in St. Peter's Basilica

Archbishop Coakley, who was the main celebrant at the ordination Mass, told the new deacons that in a divided church and in a society "hostile" to Christianity, Christians and their leaders must "prepare themselves not for privilege but for marginalization, for persecution and even martyrdom."...

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