Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City ordained 18 seminarians to the diaconate in St. Peter’s Basilica on September 28. Cardinals Raymond Burke, James Harvey, and Edwin O’Brien were among the concelebrants.
The seminarians come from 16 dioceses and the Ordinariate of St. Peter.
“It is not enough to be good churchmen; you must be disciples,” Archbishop Coakley preached, as he called on the newly ordained to bridge “divides and bring people together with deeper faith, deeper hope and deeper charity.”
He also called upon them to “prepare themselves not for privilege but for marginalization, for persecution and even martyrdom.”