Deacon Brian Delaney has begun his final year at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts. He hopes to be ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston in 2025. 

While serving in the U.S. Navy, he first felt the call to become more involved in the Church — and eventually decided to “get rid of everything” and enter seminary. His time there has been “absolutely wonderful,” he told the Register. As a priest, he wants “to be the best spiritual father than I can be.”

While Deacon Delaney’s enthusiasm and desire to serve may be common among many seminarians, his personal journey is somewhat less so: He’s a widowed 63-year-old with an adult daughter who decided to enter seminary after retiring from a 40-year career in the military and defense industry.

As fewer men are entering U.S. seminaries and being ordained priests “the Church in America is increasingly relying on priests from Africa and India to serve us,” reported Father Brian Kiely, rector and president of John XXIII seminary, a 60-year-old institution that forms older seminarians. “But what we need to recognize is that right in front of us are many older men who have a calling to the priesthood, and we need to give them the support they need.”

John XXIII is currently serving 47 men, ages 30 to 71, with a four-year program. Msgr. William Fay, John XXIII professor, noted that the men come from a wide variety of backgrounds, “from florists and truck drivers, to judges and doctors who come together to form a single peer group.” Some are widowed with adult children; others are never married or have had marriages annulled.

Msgr. Fay noted that as older men are typically more mature, attrition rates are much lower; he said that 93% of John XXIII seminarians proceed to ordination, and 94% “are faithful to death.” 

In contrast, he noted that when he began seminary more than five decades ago, his seminary class started with 50 — and only nine were ultimately ordained.

Father Kiely added that due to their life experiences and maturity, older vocations are often asked to become pastors six months to a year after ordination and often come to their vocation with “a realistic sense of humanity.” 

He urged Church leadership to be more open to older ordinands, as “people today are healthier and living longer; a man ordained in his 50s could offer 25 years of service to the Church.”

Father Mason Wiggins, 66, is a John XXIII graduate ordained in 2020. He serves as pastor of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Orange Park, Florida, in the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida.

While still a teen attending the University of Florida in 1975, he felt the calling to become a priest and entered seminary the following year. He spent six years in multiple seminaries, when “I decided to take some time off, which turned out to be a 34-year break.”

He became an attorney and worked on Capitol Hill — and, at age 50, he recalled, “I thought about what I was doing with my life; I came to the realization that I wanted to live a better life and be a better Catholic man.”

He had never married and decided to enter John XXIII. Giving up his comfortable life for the seminary was difficult in the first year, he admitted, but by the beginning of his second year, he said, “I knew the seminary was where I was supposed to be.”

He was ordained at 62. After four years of priesthood, he is happy with his calling and encourages other eligible older men to consider the seminary: “Pray on it, and try it. Seminary is discernment. After a year or two, you’ll know if it is right for you.”

Father Peter Adamski, another John XXIII graduate, was ordained at age 65 in 2019. He is a widower with an adult son who entered the seminary after a successful business career. He, too, admitted seminary life was an adjustment. He recalled of his first year: “I was age 61 and had never lived in a dorm, but there I was, living in a house with 73 other men, sharing a bathroom with another seminarian and eating in a refectory. It was new to me.”

The key for him in making the adjustment to seminary life lay in spending long hours in the chapel “getting closer to the Lord. If I woke up at 3 a.m., I’d go spend time in the chapel.”

He is blessed to have lived “two full lives,” Father Adamski explained, as a married man, father and corporate CEO and now as a pastor of historic St. James parish in Stratford, Connecticut, in the Diocese of Bridgeport. Supporters of his entry into religious wife included his wife, Kathy, who gave her blessing on her deathbed, his brothers and son, with whom he speaks weekly, his former business partners and even his elderly mother, who told him, “I always knew you had a vocation in you.” 

His first assignment out of seminary was parochial vicar at St. James. Just 143 days into his assignment, Bishop Frank Caggiano summoned him to his office; and after directing him to sit down at a conference table, he said, “Peter, let’s cut to the chase. I’m naming you pastor of St. James Church.”

Father Adamski recalled to the Register, “I couldn’t have been happier. I love my parish; it’s everything I wanted.”

While John XXIII specifically caters to older vocations, many other seminaries have a significant portion of their seminarians made up of older vocations. 

Father Mark Doherty, president-rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, California, for example, reported that about a fifth of his seminary’s student body is made up of older vocations. St. Patrick’s currently serves 78 men from 13 dioceses on the West Coast and Pacific Rim with a seven-year program. 

He explained to the Register that there are many “pros” (vs. cons) with older vocations: “The older guys are more settled in regards to their vocations and lives, are more at peace in going into the priesthood, bring a lot of fruitful life experience, helpful habits of living and good attitudes.”

Father David Mees is a 2024 graduate of St. Patrick’s who was ordained at age 59 this June and began his assignment as parochial vicar of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Burlingame, California, in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. He had never married and had previously worked as a math teacher and for Alameda County.

He “wasn’t open” to the idea of seminary as a younger man, he admitted; but in his 40s, “the idea of priesthood kept reoccurring to me.” 

On a discernment retreat, he was impacted by the statement of a priest: “It is the responsibility of everyone to spend some time in life discerning what God’s call is for you.

He entered St. Patrick’s at age 51 and realized “interiorly I had been fulfilled. It was a lot of work, but I felt I was in the right spot moving forward towards the priesthood.”

His first months at St. Catherine have been “beautiful,” he said, and “being able to say Mass has become the highlight of my day. I love the priesthood.”

 

LEARN MORE

Msgr. William Fay, John XXIII seminary professor, does a podcast where he interviews older seminarians: Listen here.