May 20, 2025 // Bishop

A Call to Support Our Shepherds, Our Future

Clare Hildebrandt

Reporter

Growing up, Mason Bailey could not envision himself as a priest. It wasn’t until he received profound words in the confessional while in college that the thought entered his mind.

“I started to imagine myself as a priest doing exactly what that priest did for me in the confessional – helping people through forgiveness and celebrating Mass,” shared Bailey, who, God willing, is on his way to being ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

With a steady increase in the number of seminarians for the diocese – and a greater financial need to support them – the Catholic Community Foundation of Northeast Indiana on Tuesday, May 13, hosted Our Shepherds, Our Future, which is an annual event to help raise money for the education and formation of young men such as Bailey who are working toward a priestly vocation.     

As one of 16 seminarians for the diocese, Bailey shared his vocation story with those in attendance at the event, which was held at the Lodge at Camp Red Cedar in Fort Wayne.

“Now, I confess despite going to Catholic school through high school, I always kind of saw being Catholic as a secondary quality,” Bailey said. “It was never my go-to adjective to describe myself. … I was not serious about my faith, and it wasn’t until college that I began going to Mass and confession regularly.”

Following the powerful words a priest shared with him in confession, Bailey reached out to the diocese’s vocations director and was later accepted into seminary formation.

After sharing his vocations story, Bailey told Today’s Catholic that “it was great to meet people from all over the diocese” at the Our Shepherds, Our Future event. “I was pretty nervous, because it was my first time at an event like it, but once I shared my story, so many people came up to talk to me. It was a blessing to share my story, which is not one of cataclysmic conversion but the answering of a call to more serious and unique discipleship with Christ. It’s important to share a story that inspires people to think, ‘Yeah, I think that could be me.’ Rather than, ‘Oh, nothing like that has happened to me, so I guess I’m not called.’ I hope to have done the former.”

Father Jonathon Norton, director of seminarians for the diocese, explained that the formation process for seminarians has been changed with the recent approval of the sixth edition of the Program for Priestly Formation, which governs seminary education for priests. Officials with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops drafted the new document in 2019, and it was approved by officials at the Vatican in 2022.

“This new program emphasizes full formation of the man,” said Father Norton, who along with his responsibilities in the diocesan vocations office is also pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Warsaw. “The seminarians go through different stages in the system. … First, you have the propaedeutic stage, where we help the man detach from the world. There are so many distractions with the cellphone and technology. The next stage is discipleship, which aims for him to enter more deeply in relationship with Jesus. … The third is configuration, and the last is vocational synthesis, where they go out into the parishes.”

Norton added: “You can ask any of the priests here: The jump from living with 150 men and a consistent prayer schedule throughout the day to being thrown into the parish is a hard transition. And so vocational synthesis helps guide the man into reality about his vocation. It is a start of life in the parish, but not complete,” he said.

“[Through the Our Shepherds, Our Future event], we want to make sure the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend has priests in the future, for the generations to come. … That is why we have to support the formation financially,” Father Norton said.

Father Daniel Niezer, promoter of priestly vocations for the diocese, explained that “we want more vocations, we want more priests, so we can live the lives of holiness we are called to,” he said. “Our seminarians are giving their lives to Christ in order to serve the whole community,” said Father Niezer, pastor of St. Dominic Catholic Church in Bremen. “The formation process is vital to their imitation of Him in our lives.”

Mackenzie Ritchie, CEO of the Catholic Community Foundation, echoed the thoughts of Father Niezer.

“When we think about the future, much can be uncertain, yet one thing we know without a doubt is that priests will always be needed! Our shepherds are so important to us; they walk alongside us throughout our lives – the gift God has given us to share the sacraments. Our prayerful and charitable support ensures every parish of our diocese will have a priest for generations to come,” she explained.

She added: “A powerful way to support our future priests is through the St. John Paul II Endowment Fund for Seminarian Education, managed by our Catholic Foundation. The cost of seminarian formation is significant – nearly $1 million every academic cycle. This is a joyful ‘problem’ for our diocese to face because it means we are blessed with a high number of seminarians. With 16 men currently in formation, and the cost exceeding $50,000 per seminarian each year, the generous charitable support of the lay faithful is more important than ever.”

To learn more about how to support the education of seminarians, visit the Catholic Community Foundation’s website at ccfnei.org or call 260-399-1436.

Clare Hildebrandt is a staff writer for Today’s Catholic.