Miss-Delectable
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California Catholic Daily - “Ready to goâ€
The other new priest for the archdiocese, Ghislain Bazikila, will be ordained June 21, but in Africa, because his father is too sick to travel to the U.S. Bazikila entered the seminary in the Republic of Congo at age 14; but, when he was 17, he began to lose his hearing. Asked by his bishop to leave the seminary, Bazikila learned sign language and began teaching the Bible to the deaf.
Bazikila learned that the U.S. had deaf priests. He spent a year in a New York seminary and a pastoral year in Boston before Archbishop William Levada invited him and other deaf seminarians to study at St. Patrick’s.
Lopez and Bazikila represent a national trend of older, foreign-born men becoming priests. St. Patrick’s rector, Fr. Gerald Brown, told the Chronicle that 75% of the seminary’s students are foreign born. "People come here with a tremendous amount of experience,” Brown said. “Some of them have been married, some of them have children, and these men feel called to be priests."
The other new priest for the archdiocese, Ghislain Bazikila, will be ordained June 21, but in Africa, because his father is too sick to travel to the U.S. Bazikila entered the seminary in the Republic of Congo at age 14; but, when he was 17, he began to lose his hearing. Asked by his bishop to leave the seminary, Bazikila learned sign language and began teaching the Bible to the deaf.
Bazikila learned that the U.S. had deaf priests. He spent a year in a New York seminary and a pastoral year in Boston before Archbishop William Levada invited him and other deaf seminarians to study at St. Patrick’s.
Lopez and Bazikila represent a national trend of older, foreign-born men becoming priests. St. Patrick’s rector, Fr. Gerald Brown, told the Chronicle that 75% of the seminary’s students are foreign born. "People come here with a tremendous amount of experience,” Brown said. “Some of them have been married, some of them have children, and these men feel called to be priests."