By Gretchen Keiser

Like most people, Father Richard Lopez sometimes feels swamped with work and unable to do all that he wants to do and all that he thinks should be done.

But he has a unique consolation: a group of young men studying for the priesthood, who will one day be serving the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

“I’m really proud of my seminarians,” he said, a remark that’s almost unnecessary after the smile that lights up when he’s asked to talk about them. Father Lopez has been Vocations Director for the Archdiocese for the last three years. In addition to his work at St. Jude’s parish, he is responsible for interviewing applicants, and helping them understand whether or not they have a vocation to the priesthood. A team of three other priests help with this screening process, and then Father Lopez serves as a liaison to the Archdiocese for seminarians.

Happily, he said, the archdiocese has been attracting vocations in good numbers…and not just good numbers, but good quality.” This is not just his paternal pride, Father Lopez said, but “the seminary tells me that our men, for the most part, are fine men.”

Largely, candidates for the priesthood are attracted to the archdiocese by the example they see in the priests who are working in North Georgia now, Father Lopez said. Once that interest is sparked, and if an applicant is accepted by the screening committee, the archdiocese commits its support, financial, moral and emotional, to the young man.

That support can include tuition, room and board at the seminary, a cost which runs several thousand dollars a year per student. The Archdiocesan Charities Drive this year is committing $50,000 to the seminarian program.

“A lot of seminarians do parish work in the summers and can’t work” to raise money for tuition, Father Lopez said, and many vocations come from young men who have already finished college, are beyond family financial support, and in need of four, and sometimes five, years of study in theology and philosophy.

Twenty-six-year-old Dan Stack, a student at St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Florida, is in his third of five years of study, for example. A graduate of the University of Florida, he studied building construction and then joined the Jesuit volunteer corps, working in a home repairs program in Spokane, Washington while his decision about entering the priesthood matured.

While in college, he made a Cursillo in Atlanta, Stack said, and that experience, the example of priests here, and the “delightful flavor” of the church in North Georgia drew him to the archdiocese.

“One of the things that keeps our spirits up here (in the seminary) is the support we receive constantly from the priests in the archdiocese,” Stack said, mentioning the phone calls and letters he receives. “It’s kind of a confraternity that’s very, very supportive.”

The support, whether by example, or through contributions to the Charities Drive, quietly builds a strong foundation for tomorrow’s archdiocese.