WASHINGTON — The Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart will ordain three men to the priesthood on Saturday, May 31, the latest addition to its growing crop of young religious serving African Americans.
The historic community, also known as the Josephites, will gather at St. Luke Catholic Church in Washington for the ordination of Chidiebere Dominic, Linus James, and Charles Nwamadi, who became transitional deacons in December.
The three men received undergraduate degrees in philosophy at Dominican University in Ibadan, Nigeria, the country where they were born and raised. They completed their novitiate in the United States and studied for their Master of Divinity degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington, where they graduated in the spring of 2024.
Dominic, James, and Nwamadi professed final vows in December, and have since served in the community’s apostolates in the Deep South, the predominant base of their operations.
Nwamadi spent his diaconate year at St. Augustine Catholic Church in New Roads, Louisiana; Dominic at Our Lady of Grace Church in Reserve; and James in New Orleans at the society’s flagship school, St. Augustine High, and at St. Raymond-St. Leo the Great Church.
The ordination is the first this year for the Josephites, who currently number roughly 60 members and have regularly received vocations from Africa in recent decades. The society, led by its superior general, Bishop Emeritus John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, also has a number of men in formation, including multiple Americans.
Founded as an independent offshoot of the Mill Hill Fathers in 1893, the Josephites staff some three dozen parishes and schools in the African-American communities of the Deep South, Texas, the Washington metropolitan area, Michigan, and Los Angeles. They began service in Detroit earlier this year and are headquartered in Baltimore.
Saturday’s Mass will be celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, one of the nation’s African-American Catholic prelates. The liturgy will begin at 10am ET and will be followed by a reception.
The three new priests will celebrate their first Mass at the Church of the Incarnation on Sunday in Washington, also at 10am.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
