The seven new seminarians and their home parish are Bryant Rivas (St. Mel, Norco), Francisco Ramirez (Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Riverside), Maurice Quindoy (Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Rancho Cucamonga), Michael Arinze Ezeoke (Sacred Heart, Rancho Cucamonga), Andres Rivera (St. Joseph, Fontana), Jose Perez (St. John the Evangelist, Riverside) and Ismael Valenzuela Salazar.
The new class exceeds last year’s entering group of seminarians by two and brings the total number at Blessed Junipero Serra House of Formation to 41. Sister Sarah Shrewsbury, O.S.C., Director of Vocations for the Diocese, greeted the arrival of the seven new seminarians with joy while also pledging that her office we will be more aggressive this year in encouraging vocations to the diocesan priesthood.
“It’s a good number but we can’t say it’s great because then we’d just sit back,” said Sr. Shrewsbury, adding that she had hoped to have 50 seminarians in the diocese at this point.
The profile of this year’s new seminarians shows that parishes are playing a larger role in the promotion of vocations to the priesthood, Sr. Shrewsbury said. Six of seven are from the Diocese, a departure from previous years when men born outside the Diocese made up more of the class.
“We credit a lot of this to the [parish] youth ministers for promoting vocations with the youth,” Sr. Shrewsbury said.
Four of the new seminarians already hold Bachelor’s degrees, meaning their journey to ordination could be slightly shorter. Also of note, three of the seminarians can trace their heritage to El Salvador.
One of those, Rivera, also represents the first time a Diocesan Pastoral Center employee has entered the Seminarian Program. He has worked in the Department of Communications since 2008, writing news articles for the BYTE and managing the digital media efforts of the Diocese.
“For the longest time I felt God calling me to something, but I tried to reason my way out of it,” Rivera said of his discernment. “I’m already in ministry. I’m already active in the Church.”
“The more excuses I made, the more it became clear that this is something I am being called to do. God was calling me to do more and be more.”