PROVIDENCE—For Kyle Gorenski, pursuing a vocation to the priesthood was something that he had thought about since he was a young student, but he chose a different path.
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After serving two tours of duty in Iraq as a member of the armed forces, he joined the state police force.
“I was a state trooper, but it wasn’t working for me,” said Gorenski, 29, of Narragansett.
“This is something I’ve thought about since junior high.”
Entering his first semester at Our Lady of Providence Seminary, his story adds to the amazing diversity of the class, the largest in the seminary’s history.
He is one of 13 new seminarians this year, representing the dioceses of Providence, Boston, Baltimore, Portland, Me. and Burlington, Vt.
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin expressed his wishes for a continued fruitful year as he presided over the installation of Father Christopher M. Mahar as the seminary’s new rector.
“The opening of a new year for the seminary is always exciting, and this year, we have, along with Father Mahar, a full house of seminarians. We are doubly blessed,” Bishop Tobin said.
Scott Watts said he will never forget the incredible welcome he received from his fellow seminarians when he arrived following a seven-hour drive with his father from Maine.
The grandson of a Southern Baptist preacher, Watts early on attended a variety of denominational churches, but always found something was missing.
After being exposed to Catholicism during his travels around the U.S., he felt a need a further need to be nourished by the Catholic faith. Back home in Maine, he said he found himself sneaking out to attend Mass.
“There were all these aspects of Christianity that I hadn’t been aware of before,” Watts said.
“Eight months later I was at the Easter Vigil where I was confirmed and received the Eucharist.”
For Father Christopher M. Mahar, his appointment as rector of Our Lady of Providence Seminary has brought him full circle. It was here, as a seminarian, where he lived and studied while completing undergraduate studies at nearby Providence College.
Now, as rector, he leads the religious community here at a particularly significant point in its history: the number of seminarians this year is at the highest level ever, with 27 studying in various stages of their formation.
“It’s exciting. I’m very happy to serve the church at the opening of a formation year,” Father Mahar, 41, said before his installation on Sept. 7.
He replaces as rector Msgr. Albert Kenney, who served in the position for seven years. Msgr. Kenney, who is now vicar general and moderator of the curia, also served as the seminary’s vocation director when Father Mahar was studying for the priesthood.
“I learned much from him,” he said of Msgr. Kenney. “We both entered the house together.”
Appointed seminary rector on July 1 by Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, he expressed gratitude for the wonderful welcome he has been given by the OLP community.
“It’s been a joy already to be here,” Father Mahar said. “I’m in union with the church, and I get to help these men become united to that same church.”
After receiving a baccalaureate degree in 2000, Father Mahar was assigned by Bishop Robert E. Mulvee to Rome, where he studied at Gregorian University, and earned a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology. He later pursued additional studies in moral theology at the Academia Alfonsiania before returning to Rhode Island.
After being ordained to the priesthood in 2004, Father Mahar served for three years as assistant pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church, East Greenwich, and for one year at St. Mary Church, Cranston, before being assigned by Bishop Tobin in 2008 to the American College of Louvain, in Belgium, where he served as vice-rector and completed additional graduate studies for a licentiate in sacred theology.
Although the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided to close the seminary in June due to the small number of seminarians and a lack of available priests for faculty, it has entrusted the seminary to the local Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven in order to preserve its Catholic identity.
Father Mahar continues to pursue doctoral studies concentrating in theological ethics at the Catholic University of Louvain in preparation to write his dissertation entitled “Artificial Nutrition and Hydration in Patients Diagnosed as Being in a Persistent Vegetative State.”
In attendance at the Installation Mass were his parents, Earl and Mary Mahar.
“I’m thrilled, it is a wonderful night,” said Mary Mahar.
“I just wish I live long enough to see him come to full fruition. It just keeps getting better every day,” added Earl Mahar.
