Pope Leo XIV ordains 10 new Priests at Mass today on World Day of Prayer for Vocations

 

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Pope ordains new priests and calls them to be channels of life

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations and ordains ten new priests, inviting them to grow in communion with their parish communities and ensure that the Church remains welcoming to all people.

Vatican News

Pope Leo XIV ordained a group of ten priests at Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday, as the Church celebrated the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. 

At the Mass on 26 April, the Pope based his homily on the Gospel of John, recalling Jesus’ words: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

He pointed to the generosity of the newly-ordained priests as a sign that this promise is still being lived today.

A ministry of communion

The Pope described priesthood as a "ministry of communion." He stressed that a close relationship with Christ does not distance priests from others, but deepens their connection to all people.

"The deeper your bond with Christ, the more radical your belonging to humanity," he said.

He also reflected on celibacy, comparing it to the love within marriage, which is something that requires care, renewal, and commitment over time.

This form of love, he added, should lead priests to become not only good ministers, but also responsible and constructive members of society.

Pope Leo incenses the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Mass (@Vatican Media)

Facing reality without fear

Referring to the Gospel’s mention of thieves and robbers, the Pope acknowledged the presence of violence and instability in the world.

However, he stressed that Jesus does not withdraw in the face of danger, and neither should priests.

"Reality must not frighten us," he said, calling this a key aspect of priestly life.

He warned that today’s search for security can lead to fear, division, and hostility. Instead, he encouraged the new priests to find their stability in Christ, rather than in their role or status.

Learning from the communities they serve

The Pope went on to highlight that the communities to which priests are sent are not empty or passive, but already marked by the presence of the Risen Christ.

"These communities will also help you to become saints," he said.

He encouraged the ordinands to foster unity, helping people come together and creating spaces where individuals can experience the value of community life.

"I am the gate"

A central theme of the homily was Jesus’ image of Himself as the "gate." The Pope recalled its historical reference in Jerusalem and linked it to Baptism and entry into the life of the Church.

He warned against placing obstacles in the way of those who seek to approach the faith.

"Do not block this gate," he said, urging priests to ensure that the Church remains accessible.

Open Church, open mission

The Pope then insisted that priests should not act as gatekeepers who restrict access, but as "channels, not filters."

In a context where many people feel distant from the Church, he encouraged them to keep doors open and to be ready both to welcome and to go out.

"You belong to everyone and are for everyone," he said.

He also emphasized that the Church should not confine people, but help them engage more fully with life. Quoting the Gospel, he noted that those who are saved "enter, go out, and find pasture."

Going out to meet people

Bringing his homily to a close, the Pope encouraged the new priests to engage with the wider world, including culture and everyday life.

He acknowledged that they may at times feel uncertain, but reminded them that the Good Shepherd guides the way.

Pope Leo concluded by pointing to the witness of trust in God, recalling the words of Psalm 23, and encouraging the new priests to carry that confidence into their ministry.

This Sunday Pope Leo XIV will ordain 8 new Priests

 

FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo to ordain 8 new priests on Sunday April 26  (@Vatican Media)

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Pope Leo to ordain 8 priests in St. Peter's Basilica

The Pope will preside over the Mass with the priestly ordinations on Sunday, April 26, which is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Two days earlier, there will be a prayer vigil at St. John Lateran.

Vatican News

Eight men will be ordained to the priesthood on Sunday morning, April 26, in a Mass presided over by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Basilica.  

Among the future priests is Christian Sguazzino, who grew up attending the parish Church of San Giovanni della Croce (St. John of the Cross), where he also enjoyed playing soccer. “Even then,” he recalls, “I liked being in church, looking at the altar and the tabernacle.” Seeing priests who were happy in their vocation had an important influence on his discernment.

Stories of the future priests

Giovanni Emanuele Nunziante, 32, also felt a desire to be close to God as a child. “I used to think about becoming a friar,” he says.

However, life took other directions for the Rome-born man who also lived in England. While listening to the Gospel of the Good Shepherd back in 2016, he felt called to become "a father, generating others to the new life of faith."

On the other hand, Jos Emmanuel Nleme Sabate was not Catholic. His family, originally from Cameroon, was Protestant. At 11, he was sent to study at the Minor Seminary of his home diocese.

It was there that he encountered Catholicism, and he was baptized at the age of 12. “During that rite, which I wasn’t familiar with,” he recalls, “I believe my choice to become a priest grew.” This call grew through his experience at Casa Betania, a family home, where his attention to disability deepened—a “vocation within a vocation.” Today, Sabate is studying sign language.

For Yordan Camilo Medina from Colombia, his priest uncle was a role model. Since childhood, he saw the joy in others as they received the Eucharist, and he chose this path of happiness.

In the Neocatechumenal Way, 27-year-old Antonino Ordine’s vocation flourished. In his hometown of Praia a Mare in Calabria, he had been studying medicine when this question came to mind: “Do I really want this?”

“I can say,” he admits, “that the Lord has made my life much more beautiful than I ever imagined. Whether here in the Diocese of Rome, in many parishes, or during some missions in Latin America, the Middle East, and India, I have understood that it is beautiful to serve the Church.”

Daniele Riscica was once considered “a new promise of international piano.” Yet, after attending the Conservatory in Frosinone, Italy and completing his classical music studies, at 24, he felt the Lord was calling him to something else. He had performed in Brazil, China, and Mozambique, but left it all behind to enter the seminary.

Giorgio Larosa, 30, from Italy, was inspired in his vocation through the example of “lay people and priests.” Through their witness, he saw “the power of the Gospel.” Guglielmo Lapenna, 35, from Pescara, had a job in a liquor factory. “During World Youth Day in Krakow in 2016, I decided to leave what I was doing and enter the seminary.” A decision that changed and enriched his life.

A prayer vigil for vocations

On Friday evening, April 24, the eight men will gather at St. John Lateran Basilica for a prayer vigil for vocations, themed “The Inner Discovery of God’s Gift.” This theme echoes Pope Leo’s message, which carries the same title, published in March for the 53rd World Prayer Day for Vocations, which falls on April 26, the fourth Sunday of Easter.

Although the Pope will not be present at the Vigil, a communication from the Congregation for the Clergy shared his “fatherly closeness” to the initiative, which he spiritually accompanies, seeing it as “a living sign of communion and ecclesial synergy in service of vocations.”

The Congregation for Clergy, together with the Diocese of Rome, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and the National Office for Vocational Pastoral Care of the Italian Episcopal Conference organized this prayer vigil.

Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung Sik, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, and Cardinal Baldo Reina, the Pope’s Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome, are expected to attend. The liturgy will be led by the Roman Major Seminary and accompanied by the Diocesan Choir, conducted by Monsignor Marco Frisina. The vigil will feature moments of listening to the Word of God, testimonies, liturgical signs, and a special involvement of young people.

A great vocations story from Diocese of Arlington

 12 Priests Ordained at one time for the Diocese of Arlington Virginians its largest class of Catholic priests in decades

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — They are a day away from becoming Catholic priests, rehearsing for their ordination Mass under the gothic cathedral’s arches.

It’s a balmy Friday afternoon in June, and they are practicing where to stand, when to kneel. The weekend’s rituals will be the culmination of six years of seminary and a lifetime of discernment.

There are so many of them — more than their diocese has ordained at one time in nearly 30 years — that it’s a challenge to fit the whole group in front of the altar.

Their bishop likes to call them “the 12.” Like the 12 apostles of Jesus, their number has become a mantra and a prayer. It offers hope there can still be joy and renewal in a church riven by division, crises and abuse.

Among the group there are engineers, a tech company founder and two future military chaplains. They range in age from 28 to 56. Most are U.S.-born, but some trace their roots to faraway countries with a strong Catholic presence: Cameroon, Mexico, Peru, Haiti.

They are entering the priesthood at an exciting time, just as the first U.S.-born pope begins his papacy. Yet, there remains an acute shortage of clergy like them. In the U.S., the number of priests has declined by more than 40% since 1970, according to CARA, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University.

During their final year of seminary, these 12 men have served as transitional deacons, offering baptisms, homilies and promising to live in obedience and celibacy. “We’ve already made the promises that are, I guess, ‘the scariest,’” said the Rev. Ricky Malebranche, one of the ordinands.

Soon they will be entrusted with more sacraments. As ordained priests, they will work at parishes around northern Virginia, with the ability to consecrate the Eucharist, hear confessions and anoint the sick.

For now, they shuffle side to side until they can fit in a row. Carefully they lie down to practice the act of prostration — arguably the most dramatic moment during an ordination ceremony. Elbows bent, hands cradling their heads, the men press their faces to the cold, marble floor.

It’s a position of vulnerability that signals absolute surrender.

“We’re laying before the Lord,” the Rev. Mike Sampson, an ordinand, explained before the rehearsal. “We’re laying our lives down.”

Searching for something more

While neighboring dioceses have shuttered parishes and face dire budget shortfalls, the Diocese of Arlington is opening new churches. Its finances are solid.

This year’s class of new priests is the second largest in the diocese’s 50-year history. The reasons behind that success “are a little bit mysterious,” said the Rev. Michael Isenberg, the diocese’s outgoing vocations director.

He points to one factor helping the recruiting pool: vibrant parishes, full of young professionals drawn to jobs around Washington, D.C.

Sampson, 42, was a government lawyer and raised a Protestant before he was baptized as a Catholic in 2013. Six years later, he enrolled in seminary to become a priest.

The Rev. Tim Banach, 31, worked as a consultant in the same office complex as Sampson. “I enjoyed the work I was doing, but there was something more that I desired.”

“I had the dream job,” said the Rev. Alfredo Tuesta, 40, who earned a doctorate in engineering and was working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory when he felt called to the priesthood.

“I had the job that I had trained many years to achieve — and it wasn’t enough.”

The Rev. Alfredo Tuesta, a newly ordained priest.

At a Sunday family dinner two weeks before ordination, Malebranche’s father, Jacques, talked up these “12 great guys.”

“This kid already had two master’s degrees,” he said, pointing to his son Ricky, 37, who worked as a counselor and coach at a Catholic high school before seminary.

On this great Solemnity, Pope Leo XIV presides at mass of ordination for 32 new Priests

 

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Pope Leo XIV at Ordination Mass: May priests be shaped by God's love

On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Leo XIV ordains 32 new priests and invites them to always stay close to the Lord and let themselves be constantly shaped by His Love.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"Our hope is grounded in the knowledge that the Lord never abandons us: He is always at our side."

Pope Leo XIV expressed this at the Mass for the ordination of new priests that took place in St. Peter's Basilica on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 27 June, which also marks the Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests.

This year, the day is observed as part of the Jubilee of Priests, which Pope Leo observed holds special meaning for his brother priests, who "passed through the Holy Door to pray at the tomb of the Apostle Peter" and immerse their "baptismal and priestly garments once more in the Heart of the Savior," and for the 32 newly-ordained priests.

In this context, the Pope reminded them of their having been entrusted with making present in the world the entire mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, Death and Resurrection, before reflecting on how priests contribute to the work of salvation.

Let God's love shape you

The Pope recalled that in the first reading, the Prophet Ezekiel describes God as a shepherd who watches over his flock, counting his sheep one by one, seeking out the lost, binding up the wounded, and strengthening the weak and sick. 

"He thus reminds us, in this age of vast and devastating conflicts, that the love of God has no limits," Pope Leo said, underscoring, "We are called to let ourselves be embraced and shaped by that love, and to realize that in God’s eyes—and our own as well—there is no place for division and hatred of any kind."

“[The love of God has no limits ... We are called to let ourselves be embraced and shaped by that love]”

Daily path of conversion

The Holy Father recalled that in the second reading, St. Paul reminds us that God reconciled us to Himself “while we were still weak” and “sinful.”

With this awareness, the Holy Father said, "He exhorts us to entrust ourselves, along a daily path of conversion, to the transforming power of His Spirit who dwells in our hearts." 

"Our hope," Pope Leo continued, "is grounded in the knowledge that the Lord never abandons us: He is always at our side. At the same time, we are called to cooperate with Him, above all by putting the Eucharist at the center of our lives, inasmuch as it is 'the source and summit of the Christian life.'”

Pope Leo XIV presides over Ordination Mass (27 June 2025)   (@Vatican Media)

Part of this responsibility, Pope Leo reminded, requires "the fruitful reception of the sacraments, especially through the frequent practice of sacramental penance,” as well as prayer, meditating upon God’s Word, exercising charity and conforming our hearts ever more closely to that of God.

Joy of every shepherd

Next, the Holy Father remembered that today’s Gospel according to St. Luke speaks of the joy of God, Pope Leo said, especially that of each shepherd overjoyed when even one of his sheep returns to the fold.

Accordingly, the Pope said priests are called to exercise pastoral charity "with a generous love, like that of the Father," and to foster in their hearts "the desire that no one be lost," but that everyone, also through their ministry, "may come to know Christ and have eternal life in Him." 

"We are called to deepen our closeness to Jesus," he said. 

Harmonizing differences, with no one feeling left out

The priestly ministry, the Holy Father stressed, is one of sanctification and reconciliation for the building up of the Body of Christ in unity.  For this reason, he stated, the Second Vatican Council exhorted priests to make every effort to “lead all to the unity of charity,” harmonizing differences so that “no one… may feel left out” 

With this in mind, Pope Leo recalled that in the solemn Mass inaugurating his pontificate, he voiced his great desire for “a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world,” noting that today he again shares this desire. 

"Reconciled with one another, united and transformed by the love that flows abundantly from the Heart of Christ," he implored, "let us walk together humbly and resolutely in His footsteps, firm in faith and open to all in charity." 

“[Reconciled with one another, united and transformed by the love that flows abundantly from the Heart of Christ, let us walk together humbly and resolutely in His footsteps, firm in faith and open to all in charity.]”

"Let us bring," he urged, "the peace of the Risen Lord to our world, with the freedom born of the knowledge that we have been loved, chosen and sent by the Father."

Simple but important advice for the new priests

The Pope then said he wished to offer a word to the ordinands who, in moments, would become priests; "What I have to say is simple, but I consider it important for your future and for the future of the souls entrusted to your care."

First, he said, "love God and your brothers and sisters, and give yourselves to them generously."

Second, he exhorted, "be fervent in your celebration of the sacraments, in prayer, especially in adoration before the Eucharist, and in your ministry."

Third, he urged, "keep close to your flock, give freely of your time and energy to everyone, without reserve and without partiality, as the pierced side of the crucified Jesus and the example of the saints teach us to do."

“[Keep close to your flock, give freely of your time and energy to everyone, without reserve and without partiality, as the pierced side of the crucified Jesus and the example of the saints teach us to do.]”

And fourth, he asked, "remember that the Church, in the two thousand years of her history, has had – and today continues to have – wonderful examples of priestly holiness."

Cherish the treasure of solid and holy priests over the centuries

In this context, the Pope reminded that from the earliest communities on, the Church has raised up priests who have been martyrs, tireless apostles, missionaries, and champions of charity. "Cherish this treasure: learn their stories, study their lives and work, imitate their virtues, be inspired by their zeal, and invoke their intercession often and insistently!"

"All too often," he lamented, "today’s world offers models of success and prestige that are dubious and short-lived. Do not let yourselves be taken in by them! Look rather to the solid example and apostolic fruitfulness, frequently hidden and unassuming, of those who, with faith and dedication, have spent their lives in service of the Lord and their brothers and sisters," he said, saying, "Keep their memory alive by your own example of fidelity."

“Look rather to the solid example and apostolic fruitfulness, frequently hidden and unassuming, of those who, with faith and dedication, have spent their lives in service of the Lord and their brothers and sisters.”

Finally, the Holy Father invited the new priests to entrust themselves to the loving protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of priests and Mother of hope. "May she direct and sustain our steps, so that each day we may conform our hearts more closely to that of Christ, the supreme and eternal Shepherd.

Pope Leo XIV presides over Ordination Mass   (@Vatican Media)

Pope Leo XIV today ordained several men to the Priesthood at St. Peter's Basilica

 

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Pope at Mass: Life of priests must be transparent and credible

Pope Leo XIV celebrates an ordination Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, and urges priests to welcome God’s grace so they might remain close to the people they serve as credible witnesses.

By Devin Watkins

Pope Leo XIV ordained several men priests on Saturday during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, reflecting on their mission and identity.

In his homily, the Pope highlighted the relationship between the people of God and their priestly identity, which he said will grow to make them fully a part of the people to whom they are sent.

He urged the new priests to always keep in mind “that a priest’s identity is rooted in union with Christ, the eternal and high priest.”

Priestly ordination, he added, shows that God has never abandoned His people, remaining with us like “a gentle breeze” that restores hope and unity.

“God’s joy is not loud,” he said, “but it truly changes history and draws us closer to one another.”

Pope Leo invited all priests to model their lives after Jesus by binding themselves to the real world, since the people they serve “are flesh and blood.”

“Consecrate yourselves to them—without separating, isolating, or turning the gift you’ve received into a privilege,” he said. “Pope Francis often warned us about this, because self-centeredness extinguishes the fire of the missionary spirit.”

Pope Leo XIV noted the Church is outward-looking by her very nature, reflecting Jesus’ own life, passion, death, and resurrection which is made present at every Mass they will celebrate.

“The Kingdom of God,” he said, “now unites your personal freedoms, ready to go beyond themselves, grafting your minds and youthful strength into the jubilee mission Jesus entrusted to His Church.”

Looking to St. Paul’s ministry, the Pope said priestly ministry is one of stewards, not overlords, since the “mission belongs to Jesus” and no one is called to replace Him.

As they become priests, they are invited to make room “for the faithful and for every creature in whom the Risen One draws near and loves to surprise us.”

Pope Leo then emphasized St. Paul’s words to the community of Ephesus: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you.”

Ours, he said, should be “a life that is transparent, visible, credible! We live among the people of God so that we may stand before them with a credible witness.”

Only together can Christians rebuild the credibility of “a wounded Church, sent to a wounded humanity, within a wounded creation,” he said.

The Pope pointed to the Risen Christ’s wounds, which are both a sign of humanity’s rejection and a sign of God’s forgiveness and missionary mandate to the Church.

Christ’s love, he said, “is a love that frees and enables us not to possess anyone. To liberate, not to possess.”

In conclusion, Pope Leo XIV invited the 55,000 people present at the Mass to gratefully sustain these new priests in their ministry.

“Together, we unite heaven and earth,” he said. “In Mary, Mother of the Church, this common priesthood shines—lifting up the lowly, linking generations, and allowing us to be called blessed.”