The Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, better known as the Josephites, will ordain two men to the transitional diaconate this winter, their latest addition of clerical members after ordaining three priests earlier this year.
Seminarians Alexander Lema and Justus Ihemawulotu will make perpetual promises in the society on Friday, Dec. 12, at St. Joseph Seminary in Northeast Washington before ordination on Saturday by Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, one of the nation’s African-American Catholic prelates.
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.
The religious community began service in Detroit earlier this year and are headquartered in Baltimore under their superior general, Bishop Emeritus John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee.
The society has admitted many seminarian candidates from Nigeria in recent decades, including the two men being ordained this winter. Both Lema and Ihemawulotu entered the society while in Nigeria and began their formation there before relocating to the United States.
They entered the novitiate in 2022 and made first professions the next year in New Orleans. They have since continued studies for their Master of Divinity degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington.
The profession Mass on Dec. 12 will take place at the Josephites’ seminary residence at 4:30pm ET, while the ordination Mass will begin at 10am with Bishop Campbell at the Church of the Incarnation, one of the society’s parishes in Southeast Washington.
A reception will follow the ordination in the parish hall and the two seminarians will receive their diaconate assignments after the ordination. They are expected to be ordained as priests next summer, adding to the society’s membership of roughly 60 seminarians, priests, and religious brothers.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
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