Left to right: Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Coffey, Rev. Mr. Christopher Wild, and Bishop Michael Fisher / Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA
The Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) this past weekend marked the diaconal ordinations of two seminarians striving for priestly service and military chaplaincy.
According to two recent emailed press releases, seminarians Christopher Wild, lieutenant (junior grade), U.S. Navy, and Mark Wagner, second lieutenant, U.S. Air Force, were each ordained to the transitional diaconate May 17 and May 16, respectively. They will be ordained to the priesthood next year.
Deacon Wild was ordained in his home Diocese of Buffalo, New York, at Our Lady of Pompeii Parish, the same parish where he first began to sense his vocation.
“Shortly after I received my First Communion,” he recalled, “I started altar serving, and although I couldn’t articulate it at the time, I knew that something very important was happening at Mass. I loved being close to the altar.”
Dcn. Wild knew that he was called to a life of service by high school, though he was not sure whether that was teaching, nursing, lay ministry or something else. His journey of discernment deepened through college, where he spent some time discerning marriage and seminary formation.
“The same thought kept tugging at my heart in prayer: that God might be calling me to be a priest,” he said.
A discernment retreat he attended shortly before graduation marked an important moment in his vocation story.
“It was there that I resolved to apply for the seminary to offer to God the time and space to reveal Himself and His will to me,” he continued. “The years of seminary and time spent at parishes, hospitals, and military installations have confirmed time and again that this is the vocation to which God is calling me. I can’t imagine life any other way.”
On May 16, Deacon Wagner was ordained at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin. He shared that he first felt a call to the priesthood in early childhood.
“When I became an altar server in third grade,” he said, “I immediately had a thought that I could be a priest. This thought never left me, and over the years grew into something that I couldn’t ignore.”
Both men are participating in the AMS co-sponsored seminarian program, in which they will serve in their home dioceses for three years following priestly ordination before acceding to active duty in the Navy and Air Force. Their vocations come amid severe shortages in Catholic chaplains in these branches of the military. There are currently only 47 priests on active Navy duty and 73 in the Air Force, ministering to tens of thousands of Catholic service members and their families.
Bishops Michael Fisher of Buffalo and Donald Hying of Madison presided over the respective ordinations, with AMS Auxiliary Bishops Joseph Coffey and Richard Spencer concelebrating. Family, friends, and military veterans, including Dcn. Wild’s uncle and Dcn. Wagner’s parents — both Air Force veterans — were present for the sacred occasion.
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