Diocesan Student
Mark Twain once said “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
Selection Conference
Once you have spent time with the vocations director and discerned together that you are to officially apply to train to be a priest in the diocese then you will be asked to submit references and other relevant documents. Usually around early April you will attend a selection conference where you will be interviewed by both priests and lay people. This is usually over the period of a weekend. You will then be interviewed by the Bishop of our diocese and the Vicar General. The Bishop will then make a decision as to whether you enter into formation in one of our seminaries.
Seminary formation
Seminary formation usually lasts for five years unless you are an older man and the Bishop decides that you can have a shorter formation period (usually three years). Also if you have studied Theology or Philosophy before then that study will be taken into consideration.
In the seminary you will receive the academic formation you need to preach and teach the faith. There are also pastoral placements in parishes, schools, prisons and hospitals throughout your time in the seminary.
After periods of discernment you will receive the minor orders of reader, acolyte and candidacy which will mean you are an official candidate for ordination. After candidacy you will be ordained a deacon and then to the priesthood.
In the first instance please contact Fr Adrian Lowe, Vocations Director
Vocations Stories
A Day in the Life of a Seminarian
Saint of the Day
- Blessed Anton Martin Slomshek
Blessed Anton Martin Slomshek Feast date: Sep 24 Anton Martin Slomshek who was born November 26, 1800 at Ponikva, Slovenia is the first Slovenian to be beatified. Slomshek is known as a great educator, largely responsible for the nearly 100% literacy rate among Slovenians, a remarkable turn around from the very poor state of the nation's educational […]
- Sep. 24 Tuesday of the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Weekday
The Memorial of Our Lady of Walsingham was reinstated to the liturgical calendar in England in 2000. The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is entrusted to Mary under this title. This feast day celebrates the shrine in Norfolk, England, which was a popular medieval pilgrimage site. In 1061, the lady of the manor of Walsingham, Richeldis de Faverches, was instructed by a vision of […]