A standing-crowd filling the aisles of the largest Catholic church in the United States witnessed the largest ordination class in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington in 64 years, as Cardinal Wilton Gregory ordained 16 new priests for the archdiocese during a June 15, 2024 Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Those 16 new priests constitute the largest ordination class in the Archdiocese of Washington since 1960, when 17 men were ordained in the year that John F. Kennedy was elected as the nation’s first Catholic president.
As the joyful Mass of Priesthood Ordination began, Cardinal Gregory greeted the thousands of people at the National Shrine, saying, “From the heart I welcome you to this wonderful celebration of the Eucharist, wherein the Archdiocese of Washington will receive 16 new priests. We gather as God’s people.”
The 16 men whom Cardinal Gregory ordained for the Archdiocese of Washington in 2024 included:
- Father Fidele Bimenyimana, 39, who was inspired to become a priest after surviving the 1994 civil war and genocide in his native Rwanda;
- Father Benjamin Bralove, 37, a native of Washington, D.C., who worked as an emergency room physician for six years in Manhattan and the Bronx before entering the seminary;
- Father James Fangmeyer Jr., 31, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business who co-created a business to connect people via live 3-D holographic projection. He grew up in St. Patrick’s Parish in Rockville and is the nephew of Father Lee Fangmeyer, the pastor of Mother Seton Parish in Germantown;
- Father Christopher Feist, 25, a California native and 2016 graduate of St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown who has been in the U.S. Navy Reserve since 2021, serving as an officer in the Navy Chaplain Candidate Program;
- Father Joseph Gonzalez, 50, a native of Washington who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, his home parish is Our Lady of Sorrows in Takoma Park, where he was active in youth ministry;
- Father Conor Hardy, 34, a member of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington who served as an officer in the Metropolitan Police and later taught fourth grade at The Heights School in Potomac;
- Father Joseph Heisey, 29, a California native and 2013 graduate of St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown who after serving in the U.S. Army Reserve for two years as an engineering officer, has been serving as a chaplain candidate while in the seminary;
- Father Joseph McHenry, 32, who grew up in Buffalo, New York, and studied as a Dominican friar for four years, and after working as a liturgical assistant in the Archdiocese of Washington’s Office of Worship and assisting at Masses at many local parishes, he became a seminarian for the archdiocese;
- Father Joseph Thong Van Nguyen, 38, a native of Vietnam, after immigrating to the United States, he volunteered with human rights organizations to advocate for religious freedom;
- Father Dylan Prentice, 28, he grew up as a member of St. Martin of Tours Parish in Gaithersburg, and before entering the seminary, he worked as an organist, vocalist, choir member and choir director for churches, and he was an opera teaching assistant and voice and piano teacher;
- Father Benedict Radich, 26, grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland, attending St. Patrick’s Parish and the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville, he is a versatile musician who considered pursuing music professionally before entering the seminary;
- Father Nathaniel Roberts, 33, a native of Key West, Florida, worked in commercial construction, supervising projects including office renovations, hotels and public playgrounds before entering the seminary;
- Father Isaac Sagastume, 30, a native of Costa Rica who grew up in New Jersey, and as a participant in the Catholic movement Neocatechumenal Way, he attended World Youth Day in Brazil in 2013 and was inspired to enter the seminary;
- Father John Winslow, 27, grew up as a member of St. John Francis Regis Parish in Hollywood, Maryland, and entered the Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington after graduating from St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown in 2015;
- Father Stephen Wong, 62, a native of Jamaica, moved to the United States when he was 17 and served in the U.S. Army for 40 years – 21 years of active military service and 19 years in federal civilian service – supervising and conducting counterintelligence and human intelligence operations;
- Father Gregory Zingler, 64, a father and grandfather who after serving with the U.S. Navy, was a live-in volunteer at the Missionaries of Charity’s Gift of Peace home in Washington, where he discerned his vocation to the priesthood.
The concelebrants at the Ordination Mass included Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop emeritus of Washington; Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, USA, who also serves as the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Archbishop Charles Dufour Jr., the archbishop emeritus of Kingston, Jamaica; Washington Auxiliary Bishops Roy Campbell Jr., Juan Esposito and Evelio Menjivar; and 210 priests.
In his homily, Cardinal Gregory noted that priestly vocations develop over a lifetime, with the encouragement of family and friends, and he thanked them for helping the men about to be ordained to hear and respond to God’s call.
The cardinal said priests must continue to develop and deepen that vocation, centering their lives on prayer and the sacraments. The priesthood, he said, reflects the mystery of how “God loves each of us unconditionally and calls us into His friendship.”
The Gospel reading earlier in the Mass from John 15:9-17 included Jesus telling his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
A sign of the new priests literally laying down their lives in service to God and their people happened moments later, when the 16 candidates for priesthood lay prostrate before the altar.
Cardinal Gregory in his homily encouraged the new priests to “surrender your lives in imitation of the One who poured out His life for us.”
Washington’s archbishop told the new priests that “your most important encounter with God’s people will be through the Eucharist.”
The cardinal also underscored the importance of the new priests offering the Sacrament of Reconciliation to their people, bringing them Christ’s mercy and forgiveness, and availing themselves of that sacrament. He also encouraged the new priests to offer people the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick “with a tenderness that assures them that Christ Himself is present.”
Concluding his homily, Cardinal Gregory said, “It takes an entire lifetime to complete a priestly vocation… May the Lord who has begun such good work in you bring it to fulfillment.”
After the homily, the ordinands knelt before the cardinal and promised obedience and respect to him and his successors.
Then the 16 candidates for priesthood lay prostrate before the altar during a sung litany seeking the intercession of the saints and angels.
As he ordained each of the 16 men, Cardinal Gregory did the laying on of hands and asked the Holy Spirit to fill the new priests with wisdom and grace. Then all the priests present lined up and lay their hands on the candidates. Following that, the cardinal extended his hands over the candidates, saying a prayer of ordination.
Assisted by a priest, each newly ordained priest was vested in a stole and chasuble, the symbols of the office. Cardinal Gregory then anointed the hands of the new priests with chrism as they knelt before him.
After offertory gifts were brought to the altar by family members, Cardinal Gregory presented the bread and wine to each of the newly ordained priests as a sign of presiding at the Eucharist.
Then Cardinal Gregory warmly embraced each new priest, and some of the priests in attendance lined up to offer a sign of peace to their new brother priests.
As the Mass continued, the 16 new priests joined Cardinal Gregory at the altar during the consecration and in reciting the Eucharistic prayers. The 16 men later brought Communion to family members and distributed Communion to the congregation.
After Communion, the choir of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary sang a song of Thanksgiving, “Jesus Went Through All the Towns.”
Just before the Mass concluded after about three hours, the 16 new priests offered a blessing to the cardinal and then stood together before the altar to offer their first blessings to the congregation. After the new priests stood with the cardinal for a group photo, the concelebrating priests and bishops processed from the altar.
When the 16 new priests processed down the center and side aisles, the congregation greeted them with sustained applause, and the new priests smiled as they continued walking forward.
Afterward, Emma Davis, who teaches theology and works in campus ministry at St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown, said the Ordination Mass was an amazing thing to witness. “Sixteen (new priests) is a lot!” she said, adding that it was inspiring to have three graduates of that Southern Maryland Catholic high school be ordained that day – Father Christopher Feist, Father Joseph Heisey and Father John Winslow.
After the Ordination Mass, people assembled at chapels throughout the National Shrine and in the Memorial Hall there to receive a personal blessing from the new priests.
Among those gathering to receive a blessing from Father James Fangmeyer Jr. was his uncle, Father Lee Fangmeyer – the pastor of Mother Seton Parish in Germantown, Maryland – who had vested the new priest at the Mass. Father Lee Fangmeyer is the brother of James Fangmeyer Sr., the new priest’s father. He had presided at his brother’s wedding and baptized his nephew, the new priest.
“His vocation is all his own,” said Father Lee Fangmeyer, who added, “To recognize we share in the priesthood of Jesus, it’s really quite remarkable.”
In the crowd waiting to get a first blessing from Father Stephen Wong – who served the U.S. Army for four decades, in active military service and then as a civilian – was Rob Delaney, who as an Army captain had worked with him in Korea. He said that new priest is a man who “lives the biblical teaching about being a good shepherd and caring for his neighbor. He was being a shepherd long before he decided to be a priest.”
For the 16 new priests, and for their families and friends at the Ordination Mass, their ordination to the priesthood that day was an answer to prayers
A large crowd of people waited outside the Our Lady of La Vang Chapel for a first blessing from Father Joseph Thong Van Nguyen, a native of Vietnam with two brothers who are priests and another brother who is in a religious order preparing for priesthood.
Father Joseph Thong Van Nguyen was vested at the Mass by his brother, Father Trung Nguyen, who is a priest serving in New Zealand. Also attending the Ordination Mass were his brothers, Father Tien Nguyen, a Scalabrinian priest serving in Florida, and Brother Khuong Van Nguyen, a member of the Rosminian religious order studying for the priesthood in Rome.
Brother Khuong Van Nguyen said he and his three older brothers, including the newly ordained Father Joseph Thong Van Nguyen, were inspired by the faith and example of their parents as they grew up in a small village in Vietnam, where their family attended daily Mass and prayed the rosary together.
“Their dream was always to bring their children to the Lord, to become priests, and now their dream has come true,” he said.
Two busloads of Missionaries of Charity sisters, residents and volunteers from the Gift of Peace house in Washington attended the Mass, where Father Gregory Zingler, who had been a live-in volunteer there for a decade, was ordained to the priesthood.
“It’s a great blessing, a lot of emotion for us to see him there on the altar, to see one of ours as a priest of Jesus Christ,” said Michael Aldeguer, who has been a live-in volunteer at the Gift of Peace for 22 years. He said that Father Zingler “has a Missionaries of Charity heart like the sisters, a great desire to serve the poor, and a deep prayer life.”
Perhaps fittingly, the next day – on Father’s Day – the new priests with that title would be celebrating their first Masses at churches throughout the Archdiocese of Washington, and Father Zingler – who has three children and seven grandchildren – would be celebrating his first Mass at the Gift of Peace house, where he found his priestly vocation after serving the poor, sick and elderly residents there.
