Cardinal Velasio De Paolis ordained the priests in a Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran. In his homily, the Cardinal said: “Priestly ordinations are always a reason for trust in the future, a reason for hope.”
Fr. Poulin started thinking about the priesthood when he was 11 years of age and became an altar server.
“I was so excited that I still remember the first day that I served the Mass,” he said. “It was a Friday, the 10th of December. The Mass was a special one celebrated by a visiting missionary priest. From that moment onward, I would serve Mass every week, and that is where this desire to serve God started.”
The idea to become a Legionary came to later on.
“Now, I will be working as a chaplain of one of our schools in Buenos Aires. I will also be working in a pastoral ministry for young men,” Fr. Poulin said. “All these years were full of ups and downs, days of light and days of fog. In spite of it all … I see that God has called me in this particular moment to continue to help him in his salvific work as a missionary Legionary priest.”
While Fr. Poulin is beginning his ministry as a priest, Eleazar Palma, a parishioner from St. Anthony, Upland has begun his formation with the Legionaries at their seminary in Cheshire, Connecticut.
“Just being here for two months has given me the opportunity to be apart from the world and begin to grow a very beautiful relationship with Jesus our Lord,” Palma said in a recent letter to his parish community.
At the parish’s rededication Mass held in October, Palma received a blessing from Bishop Gerald Barnes. St. Anthony parishioners continue to pray for Palma and for others considering a vocation to religious life.
The Legion of Christ is a congregation of Catholic priests founded in 1941. On January 1, 2014, the Legion of Christ had four bishops, 954 priests and 836 religious in formation, as well as about 1,000 minor seminarians.