Study surveyed newly ordained priests about vocation stories
Father James Musgrave III, 39, a Detroit native who is one of more than 400 men ordained to the priesthood in the United States this year, came late not only to his discernment, but also to faith itself.
He grew up as a “none” and was not baptized until he was 19, while he was a student at Hillsdale College.
That, according to the annual survey of new priests conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, puts him in a tiny group. Overall, 93% of the survey respondents said they had been baptized Catholic as infants.
Father Musgrave attended Detroit Catholic Central High School, but said, “I had different priorities at the time.” He attended medical school in Tennessee before experiencing what he called an identity crisis and learning how to pray. With the help of peole showing him what true discipleship means and a priest telling him to ask Jesus, “What do you want for my life,” he came to discern a vocation.
He attended Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit with the assistance of the Labouré Society, which helped cover his student-loan debt. He was one of four ordained at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. He’s now assigned to St. Hugo of the Hills Parish in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
CARA’s ordinand survey reported that 6 in 10 responding ordinands (62%) are Caucasian. One in 6 (17%) is Hispanic/Latino. One in 10 (11%) is Asian/Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian. One in 20 (5%) is African/African American/Black.
Twenty-six percent of the respondents in the CARA survey were born outside the United States. They represented 35% of ordinands in religious orders and 24% of ordinands to diocesan priesthood.
The three most common countries of birth among the foreign-born are Vietnam (5% of all responding ordinands), Mexico (3%), and Colombia (2%).
The current class of ordinands are, on average, 33 years old at ordination with half between 26 and 31 years old, and the other half between 31 and 75 years old.
Falling squarely into those categories is Father Kaique Duarte Santos, 30, ordained June 6 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River, Massachusetts. This summer, Father Santos is assigned to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in North Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Youth retreats in 2010 and 2011 convinced him that the priesthood could be in his future. “That was the first time I saw people praying like they really meant it,” he said. “I was used to seeing people go to church because they felt they had to.”
CARA’s ordinand survey reports that about half the respondents said they were between the ages of 3 and 16 when they first considered the priesthood, with another half between 16 and 51, for an average age of 16.
For Father Thiet Van Hoang, 35, that moment came when he was 11 and attended the ordination Mass of his uncle, Father Huong Hoang.
As the fourth of six children in Ha Tinh, Vietnam, he remembers that his family attended liturgy at Ke Dong Parish twice daily, for morning Mass and vespers, the evening prayer of the Church.
But initially, at University of Da Nang, he pursued another career and earned a degree in computer science, becoming a software developer for two years.
However, he said he had always sensed his calling. There was no drama and no questioning. He just knew. He arrived in the U.S. in 2018 and enrolled in the University of St. Mary of the Lake, widely known as Mundelein Seminary, in the Chicago suburb of Mundelein.
He was one of four new priests ordained May 23 at the Cathedral of St. Raphael in Dubuque, Iowa, for the Archdiocese of Dubuque. He’s assigned to the Calmar Pastorate in northeast Iowa. “I know that area well enough,” he said, since he was earlier assigned an internship there.
