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Article_Florida�s future priests to travel north for papal visit

Feature News | Sunday, July 19, 2015

Florida's future priests to travel north for papal visit

Seminaries organize fall pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., in time for Pope Francis

 See related story here: Local Catholics signing up for papal pilgrimages.

MIAMI | Miami native Kevin Garcia, who just finished his second year of theology studies at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, was just a year old when Pope St. John Paul II kicked off his 10-city U.S. visit in Miami in 1987.

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“I was born in 1986 and I saw a family video recently of me as an infant watching Pope John Paul II drive by on his popemobile in Miami,” said Garcia, who attended St. Theresa School in Coral Gables and the Marist-run Christopher Columbus High School in Miami.

“I look forward to seeing Pope Francis and to see a large number of Catholics gathered together to pray,” Garcia said of Pope Francis’ much-anticipated September visit, that will take the pontiff first to Cuba then to Washington, D.C., New York and the United Nations, and finally to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families.

“I also eagerly await his message to the Church in the United States,” Garcia added.

This summer, Garcia is engaged in clinical pastoral education — a hospital ministry assignment at Mercy Medical Centre in Rockville Centre, N.Y. (part of Catholic Health Services of Long Island). He will begin a pastoral year in September at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in South Miami.

Garcia will be one of about 150 minor and major seminarians from Florida who are expected to travel to the nation’s capital in time for Pope Francis’ Sept. 23-24 visit there.

Both St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary and St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami have organized a pilgrimage for the seminarians to experience Pope Francis in Washington, which organizers feel is the best of the three locations for the seminarians to encounter the pontiff.

During his time in Washington, Pope Francis will appear on the White House South Lawn, where he is expected to make remarks and then pay a courtesy visit to President Obama.

Later that day, the pope has a meeting with U.S. bishops at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, followed by Mass and canonization of Blessed Junipero Serra in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Seminarians and religious from around the country are expected to have a private encounter with Pope Francis during his days in Washington, D.C.

The following morning, Pope Francis has been invited to visit the U.S. Congress before leaving for New York.

“He has caused a great deal of excitement in our Church as of late and I just feel blessed to be a part of the Church during this time,” Garcia said. “He inspires us seminarians to continue on this path to the priesthood.”

The Washington trip will give Florida’s future priests an experience of the Holy Father in our own hemisphere, according to Msgr. David Toups, rector/president of St. Vincent de Paul Seminary.

He noted that his own experience of John Paul II during the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver was formative for his future priesthood.

Many other priests and religious recall similar encounters and pilgrimages with the popes over the years.

“These moments are an opportunity to strengthen one’s vocation as they experience Peter, the Rock — there is a special grace attached to these pilgrimages, and there are a lot of vocations stories that were begun or cemented at World Youth Days, for example, when people know they needed to apply to the seminary,” Msgr. Toups said.

Pope Francis’ recent trip through South America included encounters with seminarians and religious, and in Ecuador the pope asked clergy to remember that everything they have is freely given by God and that they must never forget where they came from, Msgr. Toups noted.  

“His trip to South America was a first opportunity to minister in his native tongue and in his own land, and we saw a very animated Francis speaking off the cuff a lot,” Msgr. Toups said.

He anticipated that Pope Francis might continue speaking in Spanish with an English translator when he travels to North America.

Six faculty members from the major seminary and another three or four from the minor seminary will join the seminarian pilgrimage to Washington, D.C.

“One of the duties of the pontiff is to strengthen the faith of all of us and so it is an opportunity for our seminarians to be with hundreds of thousands of other faithful Catholics and there is always great faith and power in those moments,” said Msgr. Toups.

Enrollment at the major seminary is now at a record 109 students, with 35 in the incoming class, he added.

 

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