The Church accepts your resolve with joy. May God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment.
Fifteen seminarians from seven different dioceses declared candidacy for Holy Orders at the Mass of the Holy Spirit held in our auditorium yesterday. Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Blase J. Cupich and our priest faculty. The community also prayed, by name, for those who have left the seminary in the past year.
Admission to Candidacy for Holy Orders has two aspects. An aspirant publicly declares that he is committing himself to a program of formation for service to God and to the Catholic Church as an ordained minister, and the Catholic Church, represented by the Archbishop, publicly accepts the aspirant into the ranks of a candidate for Holy Orders.
Acceptance into the ranks of candidates does not constitute a right to receive ordination to the diaconate or priesthood. Rather, it is the first official recognition on the part of the church that there are preliminary signs of a vocation to Holy Orders that remain to be confirmed in subsequent years of formation.
The men approved for candidacy are:
- Nicholas Robert Baker, Diocese of Grand Rapids
- Michael Timothy Baldwin, Diocese of Grand Rapids
- Timothy Benjamin Berryhill, Archdiocese of Chicago
- Marko Kresimir Culjak, Archdiocese of Chicago
- Dane Curtis Dickinson, Diocese of Davenport
- Jacob Rollin Hahn, Diocese of Grand Rapids
- Robert Richard Lamorena, Diocese of San Jose
- Ryan Michael Chew Kong Mau, Diocese of San Jose
- Duy Duc Nguyen, Diocese of San Jose
- Martin Konrad Nyberg, Archdiocese of Chicago
- Ethan Verlin Osborn, Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau
- Kyle Patrick Rink, Archdiocese of Seattle
- Joseph Tapia-Beeman, Archdiocese of Seattle
- Juan Carlos Vargas, Archdiocese of Chicago
- John Leslie Washington, Diocese of Yakima
