32 priests and 12 deacons were ordained, in two ceremonies held at the Sanctuary of the Mexican Martyrs in the Archdiocese of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
The diaconal ordinations took place on 18 May while the priestly ordinations took place the following day, Sunday, on the Solemnity of Pentecost.
During the Eucharist on 19 May Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega, Archbishop of Guadalajara, addressed a message to the new priests, highlighting the importance of their mission in the Catholic Church and today’s world.
“It makes no sense to be a Church, to be a family, to be a congregation of disciples of Christ if it is not for the mission. Each one from his state of life, each one from his charisma, each one of us, disciples of Christ, are committed to the mission in a very special way,” said Cardinal Robles.
This mission, the cardinal explained, “has the consequence of creating unity in the variety of ways of thinking, ways of being, ways of expressing opinions, ways of seeing life amid such a plural and diverse world.”
In a world “so polarized and so divided,” he described the ordination of the new priests as a “timely action of the Holy Spirit.”
For this reason, he stated that all of us consecrated to Christ “have the mission of announcing the only message that makes fraternity, that makes communion, that makes a commitment to life, that makes work for peace.”
Likewise, Cardinal Robles urged them to convince others, as well as themselves, “that by the path of division, discord, confrontation, we are not going to achieve anything,” instead, he invited them to follow “the path of unity and of reaching out to each other to build the good of all, the good for all.”
This is without counting the ordinations of religious congregations established in the region.
Between June 2022 and May 2023 alone, 107 priests were ordained for the Catholic Church in the entity, including a historic milestone in June 2022, when 70 new priests were ordained in the Archdiocese of Guadalajara in a single weekend.
With more than 5 million inhabitants, the Guadalajara metropolitan area is the third largest in the country, after Mexico City and Monterrey. More than 90% of its population declares themselves Catholic.
The Diocesan Seminary of Guadalajara, which currently trains 900 seminarians, is considered the largest in Mexico and the world.